Wreck

When I was a kid, I fell off my bike pretty regularly. I remember a few spectacular injuries: the ten speed that tore up my hand, the time I tore off my big toe nail because I was riding in flip flops, going over the handlebars that time I tried to pop a wheelie in a deep pothole. But I wrecked a lot, and for the most part, popped back up and got going.

Kids are made of rubber. This is just science.

But I am no longer a kid. I can be incapacitated by stretching too hard or by sleeping weird.  So getting back on the bike? Yeah, there was a part of me that was afraid. 

So, anyhow, it happened.

You see, I bought a pair of cool sneakers. I think they were made for running, I don’t know. They look sick. But they have really long laces, and the laces are that special lace you come across every so often that doesn’t stay tied. 

The first problem I had was minor. I was taking off from a light, and frankly, there were a lot of people around and I was like, I’m so cool and fast! and I got maybe ten yards down the road when I felt crazy pressure on my foot. 

The laces of my cool shoe had wrapped around the bolt that holds the pedal to the crank and pulled tight. I ended up sitting on the sidewalk cursing and unwinding the lace. My pride was hurt, but no harm done.

I re-laced the shoes so that there was less lace issue and I thought I had solved everything.

Ha!

Last Saturday, May 18, I was riding over to a friend’s house to play Vampire. I had just crossed a major intersection where I had decide to use the crosswalk for once because I had to make a left hand turn and I wanted to live through it. I got up on the sidewalk and I was riding a slow circle to aim my bike at the next crosswalk when I suddenly and tragically discovered that I couldn’t take my foot off the pedal.

That was bad news as I was already leaning too far to save myself and down I went into a sad heap.

Yes, laddies and gentlewomens, despite my re-lacing, those goddamned laces had wrapped around the pedal again, only this time, tragedy.

I even had the time as I fell over to think, no big deal. And then, because the lace bound my foot to the pedal and made it difficult to reach the problem and free myself, I had a good amount of time while to swear loudly and repeatedly. I did not worry if the bike was hurt. The bike deserved to be hurt. But also, it wasn’t. Used bikes already have scratches so new scratches are impossible to spot.

Oh, and to make everything worse, there was a very nice girl trying to cross the street who stopped to ask me if I was ok. And a line of waiting cars to watch. 

I know, It could have been worse in a thousand ways.

I skinned my elbow and banged my knee. Because I am an olds, the knee has only just stopped hurting. I mean, it still hurts if I touch it. It’s Thursday. That’s five days of pain and stiffness, five days of thinking, “contusion,” and five days of hating my pretty new sneakers with the fire of a thousand suns.

But now that it has happened, now that I have gone down hard, am I afraid of riding my bike?

I mean, I got up, rode to my game, and later that night, rode home. Oh, my laces were triple knotted, and I will be finding some lace-free shoes for the future. But it did make me rethink this resolve. The problem is that rethinking leads me back to the same conclusions. The earth is dying, and I don’t want to be a part of killing it. 

The only consolation is that dumb mistakes cost more when they happen in a car.