Bad Idea

Bad Idea

He watched as the pavement came closer to his face, he could feel the one-wheeled contraption shoot away from him, into the distance. He watched his arms stretch forward—a protective reaction. It was this reaction, x-rays would later reveal, that caused his ulna to forcefully collide with his humorous resulting in a chip on his olecranon process, also know as a broken elbow. His wife had warned him…

Larry sat in the Kitchen amongst the smell of last night’s dinner festering in the garbage, he watched clip after clip on the internet, taking notes and ignoring the advice coming from the living room.

His wife raised her voice to just above normal.

“You know you’re going to hurt yourself,” she said as she watched Vanna in a bright red dress turning letters. “This is by far one of your stupidest ideas ever.” Her rant was cut short by a piece of popcorn that went down the wrong pipe.

The following day the decisive and confident Larry made his way downtown to the bike shop. He had snuck away for an extended lunch—work had been slow and he figured no on would miss the sound of his adding machine for a couple of hours. The sun was out but it wasn’t too warm. A heavy breeze prevented sweat on his brow, but bothered the hairs that were combed over his shinny baldhead. As he pushed open the bike shop’s heavy glass door, a small bell rang brassily. He was greeted by a mutt of a dog sniffing his feet and a voice from the back of the shop.

“Hey—how’s it going?”

Larry smoothed out his attempt at hair and replied, “Good, good.” He bobbed as he spoke. He glanced around the shop.

“Is there something I can help you find?” the twenty-something stoner of a bike mechanic asked.

“Well, I’m actually looking for a unicycle.”

The bike mechanic reacted with a tilted head and nodded with confusion, “Right on, right on, I think we have on of those around here somewhere.” He scanned the store and within seconds found a dusty unicycle hanging from a hook. As his grease stained hands retrieved the one wheeler he asked, “Have you ridden one of these things before?”

Larry reacted naturally with a lie, “Yup, had one as a kid.”

“You want to give it a test run?” the bike mechanic asked as he rolled the unicycle back and forth in front of Larry.

Excitement and nerves pumped the blood through Larry’s body as he took the unicycle out to the back parking lot. He recited to himself—sit up straight, look straight ahead, weight on seat, not pedals. The 43-year old-accountant placed a hand on the cool cinder blocks that made up the exterior wall of the bike shop. He looked down at the unicycle that he was about to master. Larry placed his right foot on the pedal that was highest—he took a deep breath and pushed down.