A New Miracle Gun Lube?

The Rev. Paul reminded me of a story with this post.

This is how I learned what the slickest substance known to man is.

In Monterey they still have the remnants of a fishing fleet that works squid in season. Calamari don't you know. Well, they process it in a building on the wharf and then load it into large semi trailers. Open top trailers. It's really a quite disgusting process what with the squid sliding down the chute, making disgusting plopping noises when the hit the mound in  in the trailer. Massive flocks of Seagulls then swoop down in search of an easy handout while a foreign worker stands in the back, armpit deep in eviscerated squid bodies and waves his hands in the air while yelling vile and unintelligible curses at the birds all to no avail. It's all quite exciting.

One day a trailer was a bit over filled and as it made the left turn onto Del Monte Avenue a good bit spilled out onto the road. By a good but I mean several tons and by on the road I mean pretty much curb deep.

Well, we got the call and, what with Patrol being busy with actual police type things going on and all, me another Motor Officer headed over. He got there first. Fortunately. En route I heard one squawk from his radio and then utter silence. Um, probably not good but, I mean, what's the worst that could have happened? Unless there was some radiation involved and Zombie Squid were suddenly hell bent on world domination the call was absolutely routine. Right?

Well, not so much as it turned out. When I got there this is what I saw. A mass of raw squid covering the road with a very Motor Copish looking trail right down the middle. Standing on the side of the road, next to an unexpectedly Cephalopod encrusted Kawasaki KZ1000P, was my partner. The entire left side of his uniform, from helmet to bitchin' Motor Boots, was covered in a thick, viscous slime that looked exactly like the ectoplasm from Ghost Busters. He was dripping with the stuff. It didn't smell too good either. Imagine a fish that's been dead for about a week or so that has been farted on by drunken hobos on a daily basis and you'll at least be in the ballpark. Though why anyone would ever imagine such a thing is quite beyond me.

I parked well short of the disaster and sauntered over, sauntering being something they teach you on the first day of Motor School. I majored in sauntering with a minor in RayBan sunglasses. Anyway. As I approached my by now quite distressed partner I stepped in a little of the disgusting glop, just the edge really, and nearly ended up on my can myself. It was like walking on ice while wearing butter soled shoes that were made by the Grease Gnomes in their ancestral snot tree.

My buddy tried to explain it all away, using every excuse in the book from "I didn't see it" to "Those stupid Gnomes" but in the end he had to admit that he'd tried riding right through the mess and ended up trying to pilot an already inherently unstable contraption through a squid tsunami while trying not to look like a 5 year old on his first two wheeler calling for Dad to come rescue him before he hits the mailbox. Obviously he didn't quite make it and ended up on his side, sliding through about a thousand Surf & Turf dinners worth of dead squid. We laughed and laughed. Well, I laughed. He mostly glowered and swore dire imprecations upon me if I didn't stop.

I learned two things that day.
First, never admit anything on the radio. If it didn't break nothing happened that some chrome cleaner and a good dose of Tide and Kiwi won't fix.
Second, Raw squid is the slipperiest substance known to man. Why some Mad Tyrant doesn't use this stuff to grease the treads on his Tanks of Inevitable Destruction will forever be a mystery to me.

I offer this story to you both for your amusement (If you can't laugh at someone else who can you laugh at? Hey, it didn't happen to me) and as a free tip to all the gun lubrication companies out there searching for the next great answer to the eternal question of why my Raven Arms .25 won't cycle.

Squid grease. I'm tellin' ya, it's the bomb. Just ask a certain motorcop somewhere in California (but nowhere near anything that even vaguely resembles a squid loading Wharf). He'll be the one with stained breeches, a newly washed motorcycle and a very chagrined look on his face.

Approach from upwind. Trust me on this.

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