Now for your question. My (either one) pinkie stays. I get so bored with the same trails over and over. To stay interested, I have to see new stuff from time to time, or I find myself creating reasons not ride. As for the pinkies – well, they never get boring, and I am pretty certain that without them, it would be a smidge difficult to hang on to the bars. Yup, they are that important.

Steve McQueen is a gambler in a Latin American country, who is very willing to bet on anything. He is also very proud of his handsome new, infallible cigarette lighter. He is constantly boasting about his never fail lighter, when a mysterious man approaches him for a proposed wager. The man (Peter Lorre) says he is a wealthy man who likes to make an occasional bet – not for money. He will give McQueen his limousine if McQueen’s lighter will properly light ten times in a row without pause. But if it does fail to light up properly, Lorre wins. He will cut off one of McQueen’s fingers.

The suspense of the episode is that McQueen thinks that Lorre’s bet is really a flight of unreality, but he is sure his great little lighter will work ten times straight in a row. Lorre is very matter-of-fact about the wager, even if the goal is a trifle ghoulish on his part. It is only when McQueen finally gets down to actually performing the action of the lighting of the lighter that he sees how serious Lorre really is. Lorre has McQueen’s other arm tied down, and readied for it’s thumb to be cut off with a cleaver. But McQueen starts flicking the lighter on. One…two…three…four…five…six…seven….

SPOILER COMING UP.

As McQueen is about to light the lighter an eighth time, a woman comes in and confronts Lorre. She starts berating him about the bet – reminding him that everything he owns is hers, not his. Actually this kills the bet from continuing, as if McQueen wins it Lorre has no title to the car to give it to McQueen. Lorre, like a sullen little boy gives his keys to his wife (the woman who came in – Katherine Squire), and we see only two of her fingers remain on one hand as she picks up the keys. As for McQueen, as he sees that the bet has blown up, he is lighting a cigarette with his infallible lighter, and much to his amazement it fails to light!

Ah, the familiar rides. The tried and true. Yep, it means you are old. After all, those young whipper snappers don’t know what they are missing when they try new trails, ignoring something as familiar as my left hand (without a pinky), dagnabit. Mr. Piddles, where are you? What was I talking about? Oh, forget it!

When Lance Armstrong was at his lowest mentally during his fight with cancer he had a conversation with God (ignoring the obvious point that he is a publicly declared aetheist). “I wish I wasn’t sick. I’m an athlete. I’d have given my left nut to win the tour de France.”

Left Pinky indeed.

I guess I’d give up the pinky. But you’d have to be okay with me lying and saying it’s ‘cuz I joined the Yakuza.