The Bike Of Blue Death

A few months after I finally learned how to ride a bike without training wheels, my bike was stolen. I was so sad that it got stolen I believe I kicked a mailbox and maybe even cursed the sky. Well, losing a bike is one of the perils of living in the big, bad city I guess. Even though I loved that bike, it was gone now and I had to find a way to get another or I would be forced to bum rides on the handlebars of my friends. So I did what every kid in the world does when they want something they know they have no right to have and no means to acquire.

I pestered my mom, day and night, until she caved in.

My new bike was a real beauty. It was cool blue, sleek and damn sexy, but not in a girly-sexy way. In fact, forget what I just said. It wasn’t sexy at all, it was cool. Manly-cool, like Batman Underoos or the Millenium Falcon. Just because it had multicolored streamers hanging from the handlebars and metallic sky-blue paint didn’t mean my bike was for girls. So Daid K., wherever you are, you’re still a poopy-head and my Alchemist Smurf could soooo kick your Smurferman’s ass.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, sorry.

I don’t know if bikes today work the way my bike did, but my bike had no handbrakes. In order to stop, I had to press backward on the pedals which would stop my forward motion and bring my bike to a halt. One fun side effect of such a braking method was the almost immediate discovery that one could ‘Skid Out’. Skidding out, for those who don’t know, meant riding as fast as you could and then hitting the brakes while turning the bike almost on its side and sliding to a halt. The longer the slide before the stop, the better the Skid Out.

I was a Master Skid Out Artist.

One day I was practicing my skidding technique outside on the street when something ‘bad’ happened. Back and forth, up and down the block I would go, tearing up the street and skidding out to my heart’s delight. I was going faster and faster and faster, having bigger and bigger Skid Outs, until suddenly and without warning something went wrong. To this day I don’t know what it was, but as soon as it began I clearly remember thinking to myself, “Oh, this is going to be bad.”

No, really. I did.

You know how the pedals on bikes have little teeth on them to help keep your feet from slipping off? Well, in spite of those teeth, my left foot slipped off and hit the ground in front of the bike. The pedal, blissfully unaware that my foot had fallen from its rightful place, continued on in its revolution and came down on my calf like a hot knife on a stick of room temperature butter. Keep in mind that the pedals have teeth.

Sharp, pointy teeth.

The pedal tore through my pants, ripped apart my sock like tissue paper and bit into my leg like a rabid wolf bringing down a sickly deer. The pain was immediate and blinding. I fell down and did the sucking-of-air-through-teeth thing that everone does when they’re trying really, really hard not to scream/weep in agonizing pain. Had I been going any faster, I’m sure I would have severed my own Achilles tendon, but luckily all I did was rip the back of my leg to shreds.

I’m proud to say that I did not cry.

Somehow, I not only managed to hobble home, but to also drag the bike along with me. After all of the expected hysterics had died down and we had come back from the hospital, I had a moment alone to reflect on my day. It was then, and only then, that I allowed myself to ask the question that’s probably running through your head right now. Would I have a scar? Not just any scar, but a cool scar to show off to all the hotties at school and maybe get some ‘play’? Could this tragic accident somehow lead to an increase in my cool factor and finally get Stacy V. to notice me as more than ‘The Dork With Cooties’? Would she touch my leg in class, or my arm at lunch like she did to James? Would she (gulp) kiss me?

My testicles dropped that night and by morning I had not one, but three pubes.

Sadly, my lusted after tryst with Stacy never happened. My damn body wouldn’t let me off that easy and it healed completely, with no visible scars, probably just to spite me in my vain attempt to become cool and get some sweet-lovin’ from the fly honeys in school. Since I didn’t have anything to show for my pain, I didn’t get any cool points for my accident from anybody, not even my closest friends. The cute girls continued to avoid me like the plague and flock to my brother like bees to honey.

No, I’m not bitter at all.

To this day, if I flex my calf you can feel the lump of scar tissue under the skin that is the only reminder of my last day as a Master Skid Out Artist. A few months after my accident, the Bike of Blue Death was also stolen and I was not at all sad to see it go.

Stupid, stupid bike.