I'd rather ride a unicycle.

One night, when I was six years old, my mom served fish sticks for dinner. I took them into the living room, plopped down on my belly and started to eat dinner in front of the television.

The thing was, I wasn't hungry. The other thing was, it was the night my mom promised we would go pick up my brand new bicycle. No more training wheels, but two wheels - with sparkles and spokes.


"Mom," I said after a few bites, "I'm finished." 

And she said what many of us have said once or twice or five thousand times, "Just three more bites, Sweetie."

I remember it took me a whole lot of willpower to get those bites down, but get them down I did, and then I yelled at my sister to hurry up and we jumped in the car to go to the bike shop.

A half-an-hour later, we pulled into the parking lot at the bike shop and I walked inside, my mind scrambling with all of the shiny possibilities. I was just minutes away from my brand new bike.

"This one," I said, pointing at a pink Schwinn. It was beautiful. My eyes went wide when the owner said, "Would you like to give it a try?" and I swung one leg over the seat and imagined how cool I was going to be riding around town.

And then I puked.

All over the bike.

And (weak stomachs stop here), it dripped off the handlebars and crossbar down to the carpet.

I remember the owner's face, and I remember my mom's, and I remember the feel of my sister's arm as she led me away from that super cool bike, out of the store, across the parking lot and into the car, where we watched my mom help the owner clean up my fish sticks.

"That smelled awful," my sister said, watching with gruesome interest, sitting backward in the passenger seat to get a better view of the action.

I curled up in the fetal position in the backseat and groaned.

When my sister was younger, she spent nearly all of her time on her bike, riding all around town with her neighborhood friends.

I walked. A lot. 

I think it's because my bike and I got off on the wrong foot. When I looked at that shiny pink bike, I knew it was a lie. It wasn't going to make me cool. It was going to make me puke in public. Looking back, I guess it was a really good lesson in vanity. Speaking of which, have I told you about the time I chopped my hair off and decided to get a perm?

Until tomorrow ...