skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Yesterday on the bike path I saw perhaps the strangest rider yet. Yes, stranger than the 60 year old woman riding in a string bikini and sandals. More bizarre than the rider wearing his bibs over his jersey. Stranger even than the man who wears oven mitts to ride in the winter. No, this was a man, fairly ordinary in appearance, riding a nondescript bike, but saying over and over while he rode... Well, suffice it to say it rhymes with bigger and starts with an n. Yeah. As I see it, there are three possible explanations for this unusual behavior;
1) He is batshit crazy.
2) He is absurdly racist and, as a public service, has chosen to constantly warn others about it, much like a large truck beeping as it backs up to warn passersby.
3) He is engaged in a new and highly unusual training regime consisting of riding around offending everyone until people chase you and then being forced to escape them.
I know, at first blush this seems very unlikely, but remember that cyclists will do most anything to gain a competitive edge. Starve yourself to P.O.W.-esque appearance? Sure! Take every known drug, suplement, and hormone in the off chance it makes you faster? Why not! Remove your blood, store it for weeks, and then reinject it into your system? But of course! Suddenly the risk of racially motivated violent retaliation doesn't seem too daunting. I mean, what better way to simulate the excitement and terror of race day than riding for your life away from an angry mob? Sure, you risk bodily injury and alienate all around you, but you might get 1.126% faster. Well worth it.
I just hope this doesn't catch on, the other people on the bike path are annoying enough already.
Well, Kiki is coming up on a year and a half, which means she's now fully mobile and also talking. This has brought about a new revelation for us, namely that we have an almost godlike power of creation with her. She is quickly learning words, but she does pickup 90% of her words from either her mother or me (the other 10% being from family, strangers, and crazy yelling men on the side of the road).
This has given us total control over her knowledge and vocabulary. For instance, she has learned the english for sock ("auck"), nose ("noh") and eye (er, well, "eye", actually) but japanese for ear ("mimi"), shoe ("ootz"), and bath ("oohaloohalooh" although I think my wife may be screwing with both of us on that one).
The other day she was fascinated with bellybuttons and I (probably mistakenly) was saying "boop" when she would press on my bellybutton. Thus, her bellybutton is now known as "boop" to Kiki. This opens up a whole world of creativity. Maybe cars will be "rabungas" in her world, perhaps potatoes will henceforth be known as "jibberbugs". Black will be "white", blue will be "orange", red will be "turnip". The world is our oyster, or as they will be known to Kiki, "squigiliums".
I mean, this is a damn good plan, what could possibly go wrong?
Although now that I consider it, I remember something from my own childhood. When I was about 4 years old, my mother told us that (please hold your laughter until the end) if you wave at an airplane as it passed overhead and the pilot sees you they will throw bubblegum down to you. Yep. And by god I believed her. For two reasons really;
1) She's my mom. I didn't think she would lie to us simply for her own personal enjoyment. I have since learned my lesson on that one.
2) It's free bubblegum. Why the fuck wouldn't I believe in it? I believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny too. I would have believed in a 300 foot tall invisible giant donkey named Hubert if it would bring me free food.
Unfortunately, my blind faith and love of candy led me to wave like a spastic reject whenever I saw a plane. It didn't help that we lived in a major flight path. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly the most popular kid in the neighborhood. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't do the same thing to Kiki... but at the same time, my experience did teach me a healthy distrust of authority which I would like my daughter to have. Alright, maybe I will teach her most words correctly, but I think bath will always be oohaloohalooh.
