Why I didn't do my LSD on Sunday.

Sadly, the following statement is true. It is the account of a man, whose ego has been not just bruised, but taken outside the local pub and given a “severe talking to” by the local hoodlums.

When we first moved to Oromocto we bought Nathaniel a Safety First tricycle, it was blue and yellow. They were neutral enough colors that we hoped Sophia would not become offended when it was handed down to her. It had nice big rubber tires and a no slip patch on the axle. Our PMQ is designed in such a way that there is a doorway from the kitchen to living room and both connect to the dining room. Thus creating a great racetrack in the house for Nathaniel to practice on. And practice he did, he got so good that last year Kara and I bought Nathaniel a small bike; it is black and red, with cool training wheels. It became his most prized possession. He would put on his glossy black helmet, and his Harley Davidson ™ leather jacket and ride relentlessly up and down the sidewalk in front of our house. He was like a gang member cruising his turf, back and forth, back and forth. He would be out there rain or shine and was noticed two weeks in a row by a photographer from the local paper, who snapped his picture and lo and behold he ended up in the newspaper.

Since last summer we have experimented a couple of times with taking his training wheels of and he rode/fell around the basement with reckless abandon. The experiment was short lived once we went outside, as there was no furniture to hang onto on the sidewalk. At any rate Nathaniel knows spring has sprung and he has been racing lap after lap in the basement, getting his form some would say.

I told you that to tell you this.

The date was 26 March 2006, a Sunday. It started as a normal day, like most other Sunday’s (with ice cream and nuts, oh wrong Sundae). It started with pancakes and coffee, and some nice family time. Kara put the finishing coat of paint on what used to be a dreary brown vanity that is now a Debbie Travis Creamy White buffet. And I was preparing to run 13km later that afternoon.

For the sake of brevity I ask you to accept the normalcy of the Sunday, and we’ll fast forward to the afternoon, when I again prove how big an idiot I can be. Nathaniel and I were watching the Nextel Cup Nascar Race from Bristol Tennessee on Fox. (Can I hear groaning already?) Nathaniel started doing the figure eight track around and around the basement. Off the carpet round the pole, on the carpet, around the couch. Off the carpet round the pole, on the carpet, around the couch. Off the carpet round the pole, on the carpet, around the couch.

The race went to a commercial so I got up and started chasing him around, and then I spotted it. The ironically named Safety First Tricycle. I stepped on the back grabbed the handlebars and gave a test push across the carpet, “YES, we’re in business now!!” Now, whenever Nathaniel wants to ride his bike in the basement he needs two things: his helmet, and sneakers. Why dad felt he could ignore this rule, I’ll never know. The first fourteen laps or so were eventless, a lot of giggling, yelling, bantering. And we had the figure eight track down, we were perfectly choreographed, barely missing one another, and in retrospect there was no warning, not even a hint that something could go wrong. Of course one could point out that there is something hinting at, no SCREAMING that there is something categorically wrong with a grown man racing around his basement at break neck speed on a kids Safety First Tricycle…in sock feet.

Lap 15.

Dad comes past the cat litter too fast and too aggressively into the right hand hairpin turn around the pole. There was a bizarre and surreal moment when the tricycle was sliding on one wheel, the right rear wheel, when I could hear the Nextel Cup announcer saying matter-of-factly, “Looks like the dad has gotten loose in turn three” I thought everything was going to be okay. Then my sock foot slipped on the no slip foot spot and my momentum (and weight) shot through to opening at the rear of the tricycle and kept going until the left pedal caught my ankle abruptly.

There was a delicious slap as my 185 pounds hit the bare grey concrete floor. I looked across my stunned body to see my right leg painfully tied into a pretzel in the tricycle.
Nathaniel is a smart boy; this time there was no laughing when dad fell. He rolled up in his helmet and sneakers, and applied the brakes on his bike correctly then looked down at one half of his genetic donation (scornfully?) and said “Ow dad, that hurt?” I groaned “Ima go get mum.” And he tears off up the stairs.

I don’t need to go on. I haven’t run since, I’m still limping a bit. Kara has been challenging me as to how I am going to explain my old man limp to every one. I told her I’d be direct, to the point, and lie. But this was too good a story, even at my own expense, to pass up. I’ll probably run today. Maybe not 13km, and maybe not fast…