I Want to Ride It Where I Like
I can't ride a bicycle. Or, more accurately, I don't know how to ride a bicycle.
When I was five or six, my parents bought me a bike. I remember it vividly. It was blue with a white basket on the front. The basket had plastic flowers on it. I'm sure they spent hours putting the thing together, my father cursing under his breath because he only had a flat-head screwdriver when he really needed a Phillips head. I don't know if I got it for my birthday or Christmas, although I'm leaning toward Christmas. I think there's a photo of me somewhere with the bike and I've got my little yellow coat on, standing in front of our house in Dallas.
I had training wheels and I was doing okay. It wasn't an everyday think, being on the bike. I was a fairly quiet child, just as happy to play with Star Wars action figures in my room than run around outside. Once I found that ironing board for sleeves that I converted into my own personal Millenium Falcon, I was pretty much set.
But my parents wanted me on the bike, so I rode the bike. I had gotten just about to the point where my dad was about to take off the training wheels. Maybe he even did. And then?
That little brat, Emily, from down the street, came pedalling by my house on her bike. I never liked her. She smiled and waved, her golden curls bouncing with every push of the pedal. She was about a year younger than me. Seeing her, on that bike, doing it better than me? Something inside of me cracked.
"I don't want to ride it anymore."
So I didn't. I don't think I got on that bike ever again. At the time, I can remember thinking that I'd have a driver's license in ten years anyway, so what did I need to know how to ride a bike for, anyway. I think it says something about me that I couldn't bear to have someone that I considered less able do something better than me. On one hand, it is good to not want to lose--it is a quintisentially American trait, and my parents were and are quintisential Americans. However, not wanting to learn to ride a bike because you might look foolish? That, paired with the fact that I used to throw fits when I lost to babysitters at Sorry, should have clued my parents into the fact that they might want to consider boarding school as an option.
Of course, that wasn't the last time I was on any bike, but that's a story for another day...
When I was five or six, my parents bought me a bike. I remember it vividly. It was blue with a white basket on the front. The basket had plastic flowers on it. I'm sure they spent hours putting the thing together, my father cursing under his breath because he only had a flat-head screwdriver when he really needed a Phillips head. I don't know if I got it for my birthday or Christmas, although I'm leaning toward Christmas. I think there's a photo of me somewhere with the bike and I've got my little yellow coat on, standing in front of our house in Dallas.
I had training wheels and I was doing okay. It wasn't an everyday think, being on the bike. I was a fairly quiet child, just as happy to play with Star Wars action figures in my room than run around outside. Once I found that ironing board for sleeves that I converted into my own personal Millenium Falcon, I was pretty much set.
But my parents wanted me on the bike, so I rode the bike. I had gotten just about to the point where my dad was about to take off the training wheels. Maybe he even did. And then?
That little brat, Emily, from down the street, came pedalling by my house on her bike. I never liked her. She smiled and waved, her golden curls bouncing with every push of the pedal. She was about a year younger than me. Seeing her, on that bike, doing it better than me? Something inside of me cracked.
"I don't want to ride it anymore."
So I didn't. I don't think I got on that bike ever again. At the time, I can remember thinking that I'd have a driver's license in ten years anyway, so what did I need to know how to ride a bike for, anyway. I think it says something about me that I couldn't bear to have someone that I considered less able do something better than me. On one hand, it is good to not want to lose--it is a quintisentially American trait, and my parents were and are quintisential Americans. However, not wanting to learn to ride a bike because you might look foolish? That, paired with the fact that I used to throw fits when I lost to babysitters at Sorry, should have clued my parents into the fact that they might want to consider boarding school as an option.
Of course, that wasn't the last time I was on any bike, but that's a story for another day...
posted by Miss Head at
5:19 AM
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