Sideshow Bill

by William Jackson on 2004-04-23

Could someone please tell me what the opposite of subtle is? Or maybe the opposite of coolness? Because I managed to perform both in the exact same moment.

Note: I have just been informed that the correct phraseology is “obvious lameness”. Fitting.

I have a bicycle, and I frequently ride said bicycle down stairs when I am traversing the campus. You must understand that there is a certain art to riding a bicycle down stairs. You have to take it at a certain angle, so both tired drop a stair at the same time, with just the right speed, not too fast, not too slow. After three weeks I thought I had it figured out.

I was wrong.

I was riding in a very high-profile area of the campus, down some stairs I thought I had mastered weeks ago, when the inevitable happened. Crash and burn. I had the angle and the speed all wrong. I wiggled a bit, and fell to the side, rolled a bit, jumped up in case anyone was looking, tried to play it off all cool. Like you can play a bike crash off all cool. The only redeeming characteristic of the whole situation was that it happened in the middle of a class period, so there werenʼt many people around.

I hurt, and I have wounds. Battle scars, they are. Battle scars from the war of my bike and the stairs. The stairs won, and I will never ride my bike down stairs again.