bikes, big and small

I was at home for Easter and Dad wanted to go for a bike ride.

"don't we have two red ones?" he asked, not knowing how much I didn't want to talk about it. "what do you mean it got swiped too?"

Of course he knew exactly what I meant, he was just venting slowly, just as I did here, so that there wasn't a crater left in his spot when our conversation ended. He wasn't mad at me, it was the city that had eaten three of his bikes.

Well two, but I wasn't about to slow his roll. It didn't want there to be a crater named after me either.

I had came out on top with the first one going missing, the second one put us a bit behind. Especially since I had spent all of the cash we got for the first one on my new one. The second one going missing hadn't been planned for and thus I had let it disappear into the night without more than a wisp of ones and zeros on a blog buried deep in the blogger-verse.

A part of the blogger-verse that I was confident he rarely read when I was in the same province he was.

So now, at his suggestion, I'll be spending the last little bit of insurance money he thinks remains replacing a bike that I want to forget ever existed.

I am excited that he wants to get into biking, even if it is to the barn and back. I think eventually he'll get up to an around the block trip¹.

Something for him and you to work up to.

In a related story, he has a spot in the garage cleared for his big bike. I had gone out of a ride around the block, I had intended to go farther and see more people but as luck would have it I left the little bit I need to put more air in the tires at home and had to get back early. When I did, I found a nice, big bike sized spot open in the garage when I could put my little bike.

"You parked your bike where I park mine" he said when he returned.

I simply nodded. The playoffs were on and, mostly, I didn't want to make eye contact with him.

"It struck me as funny, that's all." Slight pause and small snicker. "You have a bike and I have a bike."

I smirked back.

"Don't scratch mine when you get yours out from under it" He would have thundered had he been anyone else. Since he wasn't anyone else other than who he was he said it in a gentle, loving way that let me know he meant absolute business and I'd better not mess around.

I didn't dare scratch it, just as he didn't dare park on top of mine.

¹ around the block means five miles, not two minutes