Bike Boy
2005-02-06
9:03 a.m.

I took sallydallydo's advice and ditched catching up on housework. Man, it was SATURDAY...I played. For the most part anyway. I did do a small bit of work, and that was only because the state of the kitchen had reached critical mass. Had I not intervened it would have exploded. And that really wasn't work--I was playing super-hero!

Heard at my house last night:

Me: "Jes, go put your jammies on."

Jes: "But I'm afraid of the darkness."

Shau: "Well just turn the light on, Buddy."

Jes: "I can't. My arm's scared."

The other day I came pulling into my drive and saw a boy lying underneath his bicycle, his sister standing over him attempting to help him up. Being a mom, when I got out of the van I looked to see if the boy was hurt. Since he didn't appear to be bleeding or unconscious I made my way on up the walkway, but before I reached my front door I had to stop, turn around, and gaze in disbelief. I swear to you that this boy (age about 6 or 7) attempted to get on his bike, a bike with training wheels, no less than fifteen times, and each time he wound up falling right back off. His sister (age 9 or 10) was extremely patient. She'd get off her bike, spend five minutes helping him try to get back on, get back to her bike only to have to turn right around and start the entire process over again. Bike boy was outrageous. He wouldn't even feign an attempt to get out from under the bike. He'd just lie there like royalty until his servant girl picked him up. I watched this for quite a while, and it was so utterly unbelievable that I decided the boy had to have some type of severe retardation. (I know. Not nice, but if you'd have been there you'd have thought the same.) After assessing the situation I decided that he didn't appear to be mentally or physically challenged, only biking impaired. Where were his parents? If this were my son he wouldn't be allowed to *ride* in public. At about that point I had other things that needed attending to, namely Lil, so I stopped staring and left the siblings to their folly.

Now, fast forward to yesterday. Ev and I pull up into the drive, and there, on the other side of our driveway, lies bike boy, trapped under his bicycle once again. And faithful sister is at her post, standing there hovering over him. Ev and I get out of the car and start to unload groceries, but that soon lost out to the sidewalk entertainment. Pretty much the two of us just stood there shamelessly gawking. The scene looked something like this. Boy is freed from bike. Sister holds bike for boy to get on. Boy stands at bike. Boy throws himself over bike. Bike falls on top of boy. Repeat. In the 15 minutes I watched, bike boy never once put a foot on a peddle. Heck, he never even put his butt on the seat. It was absolutely amazing. Finally it ended with boy lying underneath bike, sister riding off and leaving him there for 5 minutes while reporting situation to parents, sister returning on foot to pick bike back up off of boy and march him home. Somewhere in there Ev and I realized it wasn't polite to stand and blatantly stare, so we peeped over the tops of grocery bags as we unloaded the car. When that was all done I resorted to *checking* the mail. While at the mailbox I waved at sister as she stood over boy and she waved back and smiled. I did go inside for a brief moment, and the next time I went out there was no sign of either of them. The boy's bike was sitting out at the curb of their house, quite boyless and at last standing upright. I am waiting for them to attempt bike riding again. As soon as they do I am going to grab my video cam and tape them. Yeah, it's *that* funny.

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