CATEGORY: MRS. ANDERSON

I just celebrated my 40th birthday and I am now in feverish anticipation waiting for life to begin.  But deep down I’m thinking that no matter how old I get, I will never arrive at the age where wisdom sets in, which is what I’ve always imagined was meant by life beginning you-know-when.

For example, at the end of this week Bob and I are leaving for a two week bicycle trip through the San Juan Islands.  Now that may sound perfectly sane, but wait until I tell about the bicycle I let Bob talk me into.  Oh God!  (short pause for girding up of loins).

First of all it is a French bicycle, and I believe it was the French wasn’t it who had all those idiot kings and who devised the rack as a means of torture?  This bicycle is in the same tradition.  It has ten gears, non of which are marked, so you never know what gear you’re in.  One thing you do know however is that none of them is reverse.  There is only one direction and that is full tilt ahead.  The seat is so high that my toes almost touch the ground—but no-o-ot quite.  All my life I’ve held fast to the faith that some day my long legs would reveal their hidden purpose and be surprisingly apt for something, but now when I need them most——alas!

Not only is the seat way up there, but it is long and narrow and shaped like the head of an axe (or ass, take your pick) and it is just as hard.  And guess in what strange position I am forced to sit on it?——ah-h-h, because the handle bars are way down there in the vicinity of my knees, only out in front so far that it is like trying to assume the “knee-chest” position on a jungle gym–and I’m not even pregnant!

And not only that, but the brakes are not the good old fashioned push-your-feet-backwards kind of brakes.  Oh no!!  They are–guess where?–on the very tippy outer extremities of these strange low handlebars and respond only to the clawing of my fingernails where I am just able to reach them.  Since my fingernails are not very muscular, stopping is a bit of a sweat; and since the time that one most needs brakes is when going down hill, and since when, even on the level, the afore mentioned seating position is that most ideal for going over the handle bars head first–well now, I ask you—-WHY???

Another why is:  WHY must one’s weight be supported by the three most unlikely-for load-bearing parts of the female anatomy, namely: 1&2) the webs between thumb and forefinger of both hands, and 3) the clitoris?  This is not to mention the laterally loaded fingernails due to a death grip on the brakes.  And still another WHY is: WHY, when all I want to do is pedal along leisurely enjoying the scenery, must I be propelled onward precariously, head eternally downward observing the pavement–which I am advised is essential lest one of the hair breadth tires hit a slightly wider than hair breadth crack.  In order to see the sky or even straight ahead, one must needs have a neck like an owl, or else be so sway backed that any joker could boing-g-g-g-g-g-g you if you tried to stand upright.

Well enough of this.  It is apparent that the peace and wisdom of the perfect age isn’t getting much of a hit off the current scene.  I will write again from the Islands and give a report entitled, “A View of the Road:  A Fleeting but Close Inspection.”