Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Fun on Wheels - Cat in the Car & Dave and the Bike

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

"He looked like a kid on a roller coaster. But not one of the happy ones.”On today’s episode, two stories about transportation—and what happens when it takes on a life of its own (with a little help from Dave of course…)Ad-free listening is here! Listen to the pod ad-free and early, PLUS a whole bunch of other goodies – like virtual parties, Q&As, listener shout-outs & more. Subscribe here: apostrophe.supercast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the apostrophe podcast network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. We've got two stories for you today, two stories that are fun on wheels. I've noticed something lately. There are a lot of Dave and Morley stories that involve vehicles, cars, bikes, vans, buses. Wheels, apparently, are a rich source of trouble. So today, we're rolling with it. Two stories about transportation and what happens when it takes on a life of its own. First up, a story that features a cat, a car, and an unforgettable road trip.

This is Stuart McLean with Cat in the Car. So I told you earlier on about some of the things that were going on, or some of the things we were talking about the summer down at the world's smallest record store. And I know August is two months gone, but Dave has just about recovered from the summer. of 1996. He took his family on a car trip, something he wouldn't have done if he had read the survey published in Homemakers Magazine recently. The survey that reported that 40% of Canadian children say that they had rather clean their room and eat vegetables every day than go on a family vacation. Sadly, the survey hadn't been published the morning last July when Dave said

to his wife Morley, there won't be many summers left, you know, when we can be together, when we could go somewhere together. Stephanie, their daughter is 16, and Dave and Morley had always planned to drive out west with their children. We could go around the Great Lakes, said Dave, maybe into Saskatchewan. Morley said, we're not going to put the cat in the car again, Dave. If the cat's in the car, Dave, I'm not coming. Dave said, we'll find someone to look after the cat. The cat once belonged to Dave's sister, Annie. And when Annie brought Galway over, she brought him in a cage, and as soon as she was in the door, she handed Dave the cage and began rummaging in her purse. And Dave began fiddling with the cage door. Wait, said Annie, holding out an

envelope. Here, puss, said Dave, flipping the cage door open. Uh-oh, said Annie, pushing the envelope at her brother. What, said Dave? As the cat leapt out of the cage faster than he had expected, maybe, said Annie, maybe you should have read this before you let him out. It's okay, said Dave. I don't know, said his sister. but I don't like to say it out loud. Say what, said Dave. Whenever the cat is around, things seem to go wrong. Dave said, don't be silly. We can look after a cat.

There were three pages of typewritten instructions in the envelope. Annie handed her brother. Dave forgot about his sister's letter until bedtime, and when he remembered it, he wondered how she could have written three pages about a cat. It was typical of his sister to fuss like that So he took the letter with him And went into the television room

And he shut the door behind him He didn't want to read it in front of the cat He sat down in an armchair Looked up and was startled to find himself Face to Face with Galway again Sitting on top of the bookshelf With what Dave would later describe to his wife As a smirk on his face

It was then that Dave knew with the Certainness that you know things When you know them in your heart that if he pulled out the instructions, the cat was prepared to do anything it had to to make him hand them over. It would rip off his clothes, if it had to.

It wouldn't stop there. They'd find him in the morning, ripped to shreds, just like that school teacher in the Freddy movie. And it would get away with it. I mean, who's going to think of fingerprinting a cat? They've almost handed the letter over, but thought, this is ridiculous.

And he took it downstairs and put it in his briefcase and he went to bed. Or he was pretty sure he put it in his briefcase. Maybe you threw it out, said Morley. Last night was garbage. I didn't throw it out, said Dave. The cat took it out of my briefcase. Probably, said Morley. That's probably it. The hair dryer is missing, she said. Do you suppose he took the hair dryer as well? That was last summer. The first summer Galway was living with him. The summer they made the mistake of trying to take the cat with them on a weekend trip to the Muscocas. What happened that weekend was why Morley didn't want to go in the car with the cat this summer. The car was all packed that weekend and everyone

was standing by when Dave tried to put Galway back into the cage. His sister had brought him in, which was kind of like folding a large spring into a tin can. Galway kept popping free, then hiding behind the fridge under a bed and Dave chasing him around the house humiliated thinking when he was young fathers knew how to do things like change oil in their cars and solder things together

and clean fish surely he could put a cat in a car he needed to show his family he could do this thing it was driving him wild When Morley found him pulling Galway through the radiator by his tail, she said, What are you doing? Why do we have to use the cage?

Why don't we let him free in the car? That's why, said Dave, five minutes later, as the family stood in the driveway beside their packed car watching Galway disappear over the backyard fence like a burglar, there was a set of red scratches that looked like skiddle. marks running up Dave's face and over his forehead. Better have those looked at, said their neighbor, Jim Schofield. They can infect. What, said Dave? Catch scratches, said Jim. They infect easily. He didn't have to do that, Dave told Morley, as she wiped his face with hydrogen peroxide. He had to

go out of his way to go over my head. It was deliberate. It was malicious. It started to rain. They never got to the cottage. That was last summer. This summer, Dave said, I'll get Kenny to look after the cat. We'll leave him here and Kenny can come over and feed him. It's just two weeks. Kenny can do that. And so they did. They left the cat with Kenny and they took off on a glorious Monday morning in August and drove north out of Toronto. And they got to Tober Moray in the early afternoon and had supper in a provincial park on the shore of Georgian Bay. this is what Canada is all about, said Morley. This is the heart of our country. It's too windy, said Stephanie.

It's just trees. They drove aboard the ferry to Manitoulan Island in the morning. First on, first off, said Dave. Halfway across the lake, the sky abruptly darkened, and the ferry started to roll in the chop. And Dave said, I don't feel so good. I'm going to the car to fetch a sweater. And he was, in fact, when he opened the trunk,

wondering what he should do, standing alone amongst the parked cars like a scarecrow, what he should do if his stomach got worse. And he was therefore preoccupied and totally unprepared for what happened next. He squinted into the trunk and leaned forward, feeling for his sweater, in the darkness, his hand brushed against something soft and wool-like on top of the picnic camper. He tried to pick it up, and then with a shock of adrenaline rushing through his body, he let it go. Knowing this thing he had touched wasn't a sweater thing but something that could breathe. It was a breathing thing. And at this point, Dave lost conscious awareness of what was actually

going on. The adrenaline hit some primal reptilian gland, and he became crow magnin, Dave, knowing only that the thing that wasn't a sweater, the breathing thing, was big enough to be a life-threatening sort of thing. Not a cougar, but maybe Wolverine. Crow magnin Dave made a grunting, prehistoric sort of sound that 20th century Dave had never heard before, but immediately understood to mean, get me out of here. It's, you know, when you reach into dark places,

places you can't see into, and even innocuous places like under a sofa, when you reach into places like this, expecting to come up with something like, say, a newspaper, and hit instead something soft like, the family guinea pig, or worse, something you can penetrate like a festering piece of fruit left there by one of your children. Under the right circumstances, the most innocuous objects can kick the get me out of here, gland, into action. And so when you reach into your trunk in the darkness of a fairy expecting to grab a sweater and you wrap your hand instead around something

that can breathe, you do exactly what the reptilian gland says, which in Dave's case was to jump back and smack his head on the roof of the trunk. And a split second later when the breathing thing, which some part of Dave's brain noticed, bore an amazing resemblance to Galway the cat they had left behind, when this thing explodes out of the trunk, like the creature burst out of the astronaut's chest in that movie Alien, what you do is you instinctively grab it by the tail as it sails by you when you swing it in the air. Galway landed on the roof of the car. Dave stood there feeling the blood pounding in his head.

ears, heard the announcement over the speakers, saw his wife and children coming towards him. Now, Lord, he said, take me now. By the time they reached Sudbury, Galway had settled comfortably in what became his favorite car place, curled under Dave's seat where he could reach out whenever he felt like it and take a swipe at Dave's ankles. Tough, said Morley. Not sorry, not we could stop and get a cage, just tough. There were some nice times. An afternoon at the Science Center in Sudbury, the morning the truck driver took their picture beside the giant goose at Wawa. I once was stuck here for two days, said Dave, trying to hitchhike to Vancouver. But mostly it was a dark and sorry week. Dave left the

headlights on one afternoon in a campground near Schreiber, and they had to phone for a boost. Mostly it was Morley and Dave barely talking. Sam and Stephanie only talking when they felt a need to point out to each other where their side of the car began or ended. Every night, Dave locked himself into the motel bathroom and dabbed at his shredded ankle with hydrogen peroxide. Now, there's no air conditioning in their car, and each day it seemed to get hotter. And on a Sunday, a day when they woke up sticky and got stickier as the day progressed, Galway started to behave funny. I think Galway's sick, said Sam. He looks, weird, Daddy, said Stephanie, there's white stuff around his mouth.

Galway, in fact, wasn't sick. Galway had just been heated up, hotter than any cat should be heated. Dave said, let's leave the highway. There must be a back road. The temperature in the car was almost unbearable, and they couldn't open the windows because they were afraid Galway would make a break for it. Dave was thinking, we'll stop for ice cream. The first place we come to. And water, we need water or people are going to start passing out. And then suddenly they were in a traffic jam. On a Sunday, thought Dave, in attacoccan? I need a drink, said Stephanie.

I don't feel so good. And Dave said, hold on. And he turned abruptly onto a side street. He had no idea where he was going. No idea where he was. He just knew that he had to keep the car moving until they got somewhere, anywhere. anywhere.

And he didn't want to be stuck in traffic. He drove halfway down the block he'd turned onto, and to his horror saw there was a barrier at the end of the street. And he could feel the walls of the car closing in on him. I don't believe this, he said. He stopped abruptly, throwing the kids against the front seat. Cool, said Sam. Dave, said Morley, take it easy.

But Dave was somewhere beyond easy. He pulled the car into reverses. and began backing up the street faster than he should of swinging from side to side. There's an alley, he said. I saw an alley. And he turned into the alley, and too late saw that a block away where the alley ended at the street ahead, there was a crowd of people standing with their backs to him, blocking their way. So he honked, and suddenly they were out of the alley and on the main street, and Dave turned right because everything seemed to be moving right, and he thought, at last.

And Morley said, Dave, like it was a question. and Dave noticed the sidewalks were lined with people not just across his alley but all up and down the street on both sides and Stephanie said why is everyone waving and Morley said because it's a parade we're in a parade and Dave started to feel sick himself and Stephanie said this is pathetic

and slipped out of sight onto the floor and then before Dave could think think what to do, there was an explosion like a cannon or a rocket. Loud and close and another, it was a bass drum. Dave looked in the rearview mirror and saw that there was a band right behind them. And watched as the man in the bare-skin hat leading the band about 10 feet behind Dave's car hurled a silver baton high into the air. And when he caught it, the band began playing Dave didn't know marching band

sounded so low when you were that close to them. And then he couldn't see the band anymore. Because the mirror was suddenly filled with the image of Galloway, hurtling from the back seat toward Dave's head like a 737. Dave ducked. The Buick lurched toward the sidewalk. He stopped the car in time, but then he had to start it again quickly, like jerkily, where the marching band was going to march right over them.

And so they drove on in the parade. Galway startled by the music, ping-ponging around the car over all of them. Front seat, backseat, ricocheting off the windows. Flex of foam flying from her mouth. Settling abruptly in Sam's lap. And Sam said, cool. And held the foaming cat to the window, waving at the crowd. And there were no streets to turn off onto.

And Galway vomited. turned around that night. They were sitting in the parking lot of the Robbins Donut franchise somewhere between Atticoccan and Fort Francis. It was 8.30 and they couldn't find a motel. And Morley said, Dave, do you want to go home? Is this Saskatchewan, said Sam? Looks just like Scarborough.

They got home three days later. And as they drove under the warm orange glow of the lights that hang over the Don Valley Expressway, Morley felt that she was being wrapped in a blanket. She turned to Dave, she said, if you had to, she said. She stopped and then she started again.

I don't want to be catty, but if I asked you to, how would you categorize the holiday? Dave looked at his wife. She was smiling. He felt a wave of relief, wash over him. Catastrophe, he said.

I thought for a while, she said that you were catatonic, said Dave. She laughed. It's good to be home, she said. It wasn't a complete cataclysm, said Dave. Next year, she said no car. We'll fly to the cat skills, said Morley. It was good to be home. There was a pile of mail on the dining room table and a note from Kenny on the kitchen counter. Didn't see the cat for the first day or two. So I put the food out on the porch and he started eating it.

He finally came in after a couple of days. Didn't let him out again. I think he missed you. He's been scratching up the furniture a bit. Dave walked into the living room, holding the note, feeling sick, hoping it was a joke, and saw Morley standing there with a suitcase in both arms looking at her son. Sam was coming down the stairs with a large orange cat folded in his arms. She was on my bed, he said.

She's a warrior. Can we keep her, dad? Can we keep her? I'm going to call her Shira. That was Stuart McLean with Cat in the Car. That's an old one. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another Dave and Morley story. So stick around.

Welcome back. Our second story today is about a bike, but not just any bike. It's about pride, resilience, and lycra. This is Stuart McLean with Dave and the bike. We also sometimes call this one Tour to Dave. You'll see why. Dave's neighbor, Ted Anderson, bought his first bike about 10 years ago.

Ted bought it to ride to work. It's a modest bike, a commuter with three speeds in a saddlebag. And because he didn't know any better, that bike made Ted modestly happy. Bike to work when the weather was warm and the roads were dry, and that was more or less that, for more or less a summer,

until Ted figured bikes out. Today, ten years later, Ted owns seven bikes. They hang from hooks in a sparkling row in his basement, as if he was running a bike store down there. Closest to the door, his go-to machine, a classic Italian road bike, a Pinnarello, with a leather saddle, drop handlebars,

and campy components. The bike Ted uses to get around. Beside the Pinarello, it's polar opposite, a three-speed Dutch bike. Ted uses it when it's snowing. Next is the off-road trek. Ted's only American bike, his homage to Lance Armstrong.

And beside that, in the place to honor, his pride and joy, his racing bike, his baby blue artisan-built carbon fiber to rally. It cost him $12,000. Everything on the Trelli is handmade, right down to the $200

ultra-light carbon fiber water bottle. It's all about saving weight, shaving grams. It's what you do if you're a serious cyclist, and Ted is serious. Ted made the leap from riding to racing on his 40th birthday. It's nothing for him to come home

on a weeknight, jump on his bus, and go for a 50-kilometer ride. Every Sunday, he hauls the bike out to the country on top of his car and hammers out a century. That's a 100-kilometer ride. Ted always starts and finishes his rides with an espresso at Kenny Wong's Cafe, Wong's Scottish meat pies. He doesn't have to go to Kenny's. He has his own espresso machine at home, but since Kenny got his machine, dropping in has become

Ted's ritual. He likes it there, likes to tell Kenny the latest news about his bike, or if Kenny is busy anyone else who makes the mistake of looking remotely interested. Ted says being on the to rally is more like dancing than riding. He says he and his bike know each other so well they react to each other's moods. It's like it has a personality he was saying to a man who sat down beside him the other day. There are times when the bike is totally in control of me, when I'm not even steering, like I'm just along for the ride. When it comes to biking, Ted has the enthusiasm of a convert. He's not a proponent of cycling. He's a proselytizer. He's not an enthusiast. He's an evangelist. Think of it as an investment he preached to Arnie Schellenberger one hour.

afternoon, his empty espresso cup on the counter in front of him. You can't be serious, said Arnie. A $12,000 bike? It's an investment in your health, said Ted. Arnie rolled his eyes, and then Ted pounced. Bikes don't appreciate the way cars do, said Ted. Arnie had just bought himself a new car. Ted has this preacher's zeal for zes. zeroing in on people's weak spots. A bike's the very best way to unwind, he once told Mary Turlington. I always insist my wife, Polly,

go for a ride when she gets as grumpy as you get. Always calms her down. He believes he's doing people a favor. But when Ted talks about his bike, he manages to make just about everyone in the neighborhood feel bad about themselves. Everyone, strangely, except, for Dave. Have you ever felt his bike? Said Dave to Kenny one day. Well, you can lift it off the

ground with one finger. It's as light as a piece of paper. I can't imagine what it would be like to ride it. Well, that's a lie. Dave spent altogether too much time imagining what it might be like to ride Ted's bike. He's imagined leaning into a corner, riding the wind, standing up, swaying from side to side actually feeling the road beneath them. So one Saturday afternoon, when Dave came upon a yard sale and spotted a set of racing gear for sale, the spandex shorts, the colorful jersey, the helmet and the gloves, he bought the lot of it, even bought himself a pair of cycling shoes. Guy selling this stuff couldn't have been nicer.

You have to watch these, he said. flipping one of the black leather shoes over. And he showed Dave the silver cleat on the sole and explained to him how it locked onto the pedal. Like a ski boot onto a ski, he said. Then he said, be careful walking around. These could be very slippery. When Dave left, he owned everything a cyclist would need,

except, of course, a bike. But before an expenditure like that, it's good to do a little research, to get a feel for the thing, to push your dreams against the wheel of reality. One day, Dave tried to bring that up with Ted, not directly. He sort of hinted around it. Would Ted loan his bike to someone, say, for a weekend or something? Ted looked so horrified. Dave dropped it right away. But he kept thinking if he could just get even 15 minutes on the bike. He'd be able to tell if he liked it. And then one afternoon, Dave spotted Ted's car parked in the lane behind his store. He knew it was Ted's car because Ted's bike was on the roof rack.

Dave ran upstairs and changed into his bike clothes. The whole kit, and he tip, towed carefully out to the alley in his cycling shoes the way the guide showed him. He knew he had time for this. Ted was inside having his coffee. Dave wasn't going to ride the bike. He just wanted to sit on it. So he walked out into the alley and he climbed up onto the roof of Ted's car. He swung himself onto the saddle at Ted's pride and joy. And he leaned over the handlebars, feeling amazingly good. This was something he could do. He could totally do this.

He waved his hands over his head, just like the guys in the Tour de France. And that is when Ted walked out the back door of the restaurant. Dave holding his hands over his head, Ted with his head down, staring at a map. And Dave thought, okay, okay, I can get off the bike and slip down the other side of the car before Ted sees me. So he shifted all his weight onto his right foot so he could step off the bike. and there was an ominous click. The pedal grabbed the cleat of his shoe just like the man told him it would.

Like a ski grabbing a ski boot. And it wouldn't let go. So Dave pushed with the other foot. There was a second click. Then Dave heard the car door slam. The engine started. And they began rolling down the alley. This was a Sunday morning.

Ted was heading to the country. country. Dave was perched on his roof. Dave looked like the space shuttle bolted on top of a 747. Ted pulled out of the alley and onto the street right in front of a taxi. The taxi driver pointed at Ted's roof and shouted, this was not unusual. This happens to Ted frequently. People who know bikes often point at his roof. Ted smiled at the cabby and way back. Then he stepped on the gas, and he pulled into the traffic. More than the usual number of people honked their horns that day. And each time they did, Ted smiled proudly and honked back.

While Dave clung on for dear life, his hair pushed back in the wind, his mouth frozen open. He looked like a kid on a roller coaster. But not one of the happy ones. And then Ted hit the highway, and he picked up ahead of speed, and the bike's wheels began to spin in the wind. Pretty soon, Dave was peddling his heart out. He actually looked like one of the guys in the Tour de France. But not one of the happy guys. Unfortunately, Ted's bike rack hadn't been designed for Dave's added weight.

It began to work loose. So as they flew along, Dave started to sway from side to side on top of that car. Panic can be a wonderful thing. It helps you get a lot done in a short period of time, often without a lot of extra thought. Dave, who had been twisting his feet this way and that, was finally seized completely by panic, and he twisted one of his feet the correct way. His right foot flew urgently free. It was caught by the wind and began flapping behind him like a windsock.

The other foot popped out almost immediately. It flapped around too. And for a moment Dave lost sight of what was happening. He turned and stared at amazement at his legs flapping behind him. He had no idea he was that flexible. And then he did the only thing he could think of doing. He swung his left leg over the frame and he stepped onto the roof. clinging onto the bike like a wing walker from the days of the barnstorming biplanes.

His colorful jersey was flapping in the wind as he dropped down to his knees and grabbed the straps that held the bike rack to the roof. Then he began to inch his way toward the front windshield. He saw him, an oblivious to the drama on his roof. Ted was having the time of his life. He just slipped his all-time favorite out. into the CD player, the best of John Denver. Ted was driving down the road without a care in the world,

tapping the steering wheel and singing along with the music, Take me home, Country Roads. He was just coming to the chorus, Almost Heaven, West Virginia, Take me home, Country Roads. When out of nowhere there was a face on the windshield staring at him, an upside down face obscuring his voice, obscuring his vision. Ted screamed in terror. Take me home saying,

scream Ted. And then Ted slammed on the brakes. A number of things happened all at once. The car screeched to an abrupt stop. The paper light, baby blue, Terrelli, lifted off the roof and floated up in the air like a piece of paper. Seemed to hover there for a moment. It hid the pavement just in front of Ted's front wheels. He barely felt it as he rolled over it. At that exact instant, Dave, who had a death grip on the rack's straps, flipped over the windshield and landed on the hood. And Ted finally knew what had happened.

It was his worst nightmare. He had killed a cyclist. And the cyclist looked oddly familiar. This was all several weeks ago now. Time heals many wounds. Dave quietly dropped his cycling clothes. in a goodwill box the next week. Ted got himself a new bike with the insurance money.

He doesn't talk about the new bike nearly as much as he talked about the old one. If you press him, he will tell you that he still feels a good bike can be a man's salvation. But that really depends on who he's talking to. Ted's discovered the problem with proselytizing. When you preach, you never know who your converts will be.

That was the story. we called Dave in the Bike. We recorded that story in 2010 in Gander, Newfoundland. All right, that's it for today, but we'll be back here next week with more from Stuart McLean. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the apostrophe podcast network. The recording engineer would not be caught dead in spandex, Greg DeCleut.

Theme music is by Danny Michelle, and the show is produced by Louise Curtis, Greg DeClute, and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.