Sharing the Road

I asked my parents for a motorcycle on my 18^th birthday.  When they were done laughing, I asked for a Schwinn, and they said, Yes.  It set them back in the neighborhood of $87.95 (you can find Schwinn ads on eBay), which comes out to $552.28 now.  All I can say is they must have liked me.

That venerable Schwinn and its equally venerable rider are waiting for a break in the weather; right now, Chicago appears intent on disproving all evidence of global warning.  If and when it gets warm, I’ll be riding by all sorts of people and conveyances—bicycle, skateboard, rollerblades.  For the most part, I’ll live and let live, provided nobody tries to cut me off.  The pretty boys in their spandex racing outfits are prone to do that, so for them I’ll save a few choice words.

In contrast, the rollerbladers are pretty harmless, though the unsteady ones do tend to drift into my lane from time to time.  It’s the skateboarders I can’t get a good read for.  They’re as standoffish as the pretty boys on their $$$ bikes, yet with a defensiveness about them.  Their skateboard is some sort of statement they want everyone to get, only they don’t make eye contact and tell you what it is.  So, we pass one another, the wary cyclist and the guess-what-I’m-thinking skateboarder.  Ships in the night we are, each on our way to important places, or so we think.