Biking

Here's a story that might make you laugh.

One thing you guys ought to know about me is that I hate bikes. I hate them with a fiery, undying passion. I'm not really sure why, though, unless it was just something I was born with. The thing is, everyone else in my family loves them! Clearly I'm the only one who was born with the sanity gene.

Sometimes I speculate: what is it that I can't stand about them? Is it the uncomfortable seat? Or the goofy looking helmets? Perhaps it's the way I'm never going quite as fast as I want to. Like the whole time I'm just thinking, "I would've been there by now if my mother had driven me."


Lack of speed is definitely one of the factors that got me into this particular disaster.

It was a stiflingly hot day in the middle of June, last summer. It was the sort of day that made you want to lie under a shady tree and pass out, panting like an exhausted dog. My mother had informed me that morning that bike riding was wholesome, especially when it's a gorgeous 95 degrees outside! My sister, the "good child" as always, agreed.

I argued with them, but to no avail. They were completely convinced that pre-industrial transportation was the way to go. And so I made the long trek downhill to volleyball practice.

The day waned. The sun moved higher in the sky. The sidewalk sizzled and melted a little bit pleasantly.Volleyball practice ended. The moment I stepped outside I knew I would die on my way home. The sweat was literally dripping off me by the gallon. With a heavy heart, I clambered onto the sticky black seat and pedaled at a slow, agonizing pace.

I was actually making progress! "Hey," I thought as I smiled wearily to myself. "This isn't so hard." And so I inched along. But then I saw the hill. It was massive, much larger from the bottom then it had seemed to be from the summit, when I was on my way to practice. (Well, it wasn't really a summit, seeing as I live in Wilmette, Illinois, but you get the idea.)

How could any normal human possibly climb that thing? A flash, a welcomed cool breeze, and I saw my sister fly by me with ease. Well that was just fine. She had a new bike, with all sorts of fancy gears. I had a rickety old thing that once belonged to my mother. It took forever to work through the rust on the pedals! I sadly started my journey up.

To make a long, depressing story short, it took me about an hour and a half to arrive at home, when it only should've taken me fifteen minutes. I creaked, wobbly at the knees into the alley behind my house. With the last dashes of my energy, I hurled the cursed thing at our back fence and left it there for hours. "Why doesn't it go ahead and get stolen, for all I care!" I thought dimly, and I stumbled into my peaceful, air conditioned kitchen.

Unfortunately, as I would discover late that night, that's exactly what would happen.