Bicycles are Serious Business

In high school I had to come straight home after school let out so my mom could confirm that I didn't somehow die during the day. She took her job as a worrier very seriously. 

I don't really remember why my parents had taken away my car. I think it was because I was skipping out on going to Seminary School but the point is that they did. I was allowed to drive my car to and from school but aside from that it had to stay home. This posed a problem to me because my best friend was a guy by the name of Bryce. According to Google maps Bryce lived 2.9 miles from my house which is at least 2.8 miles further than I was willing to walk.

One particular day Bryce came home with me to hang out right after school at my house so that we could evade the "to school and back" moratorium. After a couple hours we grew bored and decided we should go to his house. The car was out of the question and neither of us wanted to walk at all so we decided to ride a couple of my old bicycles to his house. I figured it would be easy because it is downhill the entire way. We agreed that this idea was at least as awesome as that time when Bryce put a sock on his sister's cat's head and then it fell down the stairs trying to get it off. That cat was a dick and totally deserved it.

We started riding and after a hundred yards or so Bryce insisted that we switch bikes because he doesn't like the one he's on. He was a good foot taller than me so I conceded to let him on the bigger bike. I had originally wanted it for myself because it was a better bike. Shame on me for being talked out of it.

As we rode down the longest, steepest stretch of road we started pedaling faster. Fast enough to nearly keep up with the cars on the 35 mph road. I started showing off to the cars passing us by doing wheelies off the curbs. In my mind I was much more than that though. I was really "it."

I was having a wonderful time being lost in my own imagination. That was when tragedy struck.

I clearly remember this moment. I truthfully felt like this split second had more than enough time for me to take a break, go make a sandwich, eat it, come back and STILL have to wait around for it to be over. I remember thinking something along the lines of "FML" and then I guess I must have decided that I was really really tired because the next thing I remember is waking up from a nap in the street. Bryce was standing over me saying something but I couldn't understand him. The pain flared. I remembered losing my tire so I correctly assumed he was asking if I was "OK." I totally wasn't but I thought if I said so it would make it real so I said "yeah........... I gotta pee." I really did. I had to pee like it was nobody's business. I was going to explode and die right then and there if I didn't go. Cars going by? People watching? Eff 'em, I had to go and I had to go NOW.

I leaned against a telephone pole and knelt because my legs weren't working well yet and went wild. I don't really remember anything else so the rest of this story is what Bryce has told me. He said I dismounted my bike "with a windmill" (a breakdance windmill) but then landed on my face and then proceeded to ask him what happened to me every 5-10 min for hours afterward. Bryce got bored of my questions.

After some drama with talking to my Mom we went to the hospital where it was announced I was fine. Just a concussion (obviously...)

Bats are melodramatic

I still don’t have a degree but I’m "mostly there." When I was in Wichita Falls, Texas (for my technical school to get "mostly there" with my degree) I used to hang out with a guy who lived just down the hall of my dorms named Chris. 

Wichita Falls is definitely in the running for my least favorite places in the entire world. It reminds me a lot of being stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean except that instead of water there is suck. Suck for miles in every direction. I hate Wichita.

So this magical day Chris and I are walking to the grocery store. We didn't need anything. We were just bored and the grocery store sounded exciting (see how cool Wichita is?). On our way back it was starting to get dark when we encountered something that changed how I thought about Wichita forever. A little bit at least.We were walking when I heard the strangest sound coming from a tree. The tree seemed to be screeching. Intrigued we moved closer.

 The tree was swarming with bats. Bajillions of bats. I used that moment to reveal the true depths of my powers of observation. I had been holding back from the world. "Dude, there's gotta be at least 7 bats in that tree" I said. Immediately I had an amazing idea! "Where is a rock!??!" I exclaimed in my exhilaration. Chris didn't hesitate a moment - we dropped our bags of assorted randomness from the grocery store and began to scavenge the parking lot for ammunition. Chris found a small section of parking lot that was broken up into gravel but there was no rocks..... "ZOMG GRAVEL!!!!!"

"YES! Gravel." I mused delightedly. Why throw one rock when I can launch and entire volley at them? Quickly my mind lost itself in the grandeur of such a thought and soon we each had a handful of gravel. We counted to three and fired.

The reaction was instant. The bats may as well have started blinking red. They were rage incarnate and they demanded retribution for our petty crimes against them. The problem for us though, was not that the bats were angry enough to impregnate us just to abort our children and feed them to alligators, it was that we could barely move from laughing. The sound they made when the rocks impacted them.... The best I can describe it is to say that it's the noise you want to make when you jump into a frozen lake crossed with the sound a pterodactyl makes when you beat it at checkers (I'm sure you guys know the one).

Once they began to fly toward us with murder painted in their eyes we regained our composure and ran like we had somewhere to be. The bats didn't give chase for more than 50 feet or so but we had left our groceries behind. We couldn't go back and tell everyone we had been bullied out of our groceries by a bunch of bats. We had to formulate a plan. 

Soon we had an action plan. We would wait a few minutes till they had calmed down then ninja steal our stuff back in a burst of speed. The bats would never even realize what had happened. That was the original plan anyway. That was before I had my next super awesome idea.

We did it again.