If you’ve never launched yourself off a bike and onto the
heart a large prickly pear patch you are obviously not me.
Contrary to what Wile E. Coyote would have you believe, the
worst part of falling on a cactus is not the part where you land on the cactus. It’s not even the part where you look down
and mistake your arm for a porcupine. The worst part is the humiliation. There
may be hundreds of barbs lodged in your arm and hundreds more lurking in your
pants, and still, the embarrassment will be worse. Let me explain how.
1. To start with, you fall off a bicycle, despite it being a skill that you
supposedly mastered 24 years ago.
2. You fall off a bicycle onto a cactus.
3. You fall off a bicycle onto a cactus with your rear.
4. Your male riding companion staunchly refuses to leave your
side out of concern and a misguided sense of loyalty. This means he is going to stand there
endlessly while you stick your hand down your pants and frantically try to
pluck splinters out. This will not help anyone feel better.
5. As this male stares saucer-eyed at the toothpicks protruding
from your back, you will have to beg and plead with him to GO AWAY PLEASE so
you can get down to business. As the
words come out of your mouth, you have a dark, oozy feeling inside. You don’t
realize it until this point, but begging is humiliating.
6. A fresh wave of embarrassment rolls over you as you realize the
person staring at you was doing this just before you fell off your bike on the beginner's trail.
7. After finally convincing Riding Companion to really-please-leave-and-go-ride-another-trail-you-being-here-is-embarrassing-me,
you begin work in earnest. While you pluck, you contemplate how you will finish
the remaining ½ mile of trail to get back to the car. After what seems like a
minor eternity of plucking, Riding Companion returns. Dismay sets in as you
realize the butt dethorning has gone nowhere and moving is still exceptionally
uncomfortable. Dismay morphs into mild
panic as you realize the only other option to alleviate some of the pain of movement
is the removal of pants and a ginger ½
mile walk, to be topped off by a feverish dash to the car once out of the cover
of the trail and out into the bald open parking lot. Again, this is not going
to make anyone feel better.
You opt for a painful, but quick, ride back to the car. For
once in your wide-bottomed life you are thankful for the tiny wedge of a bike seat.
You occupy only the tiniest tip of the seat, grit your teeth, and pedal back to
the car. You spread a spiral notebook on the car seat, tenderly sit, and endure
the drive home, each clutch release driving the barbs further in.
Once home, things really take off.
1. Riding Companion mentioned that duct tape takes barbs out. You
get home to discover you only have something called “Gorilla Tape” which does
not stick at all and smells very bad. You cannot bear to sit down again to make
a trip to the store. Your roommates aren’t home, but you request they bring
duct tape upon their return.
2. In the meantime, further research reveals that several
layers of Elmer’s glue applied several times may do the trick. You proceed to
slather your haunches in Elmer’s glue.
3. You spend an inordinate amount of time waiting for glue to
dry while standing in precarious stances as it slowly oozes down your legs.
4. Upon starting the second round of Operation Elmer’s, you get
the brilliant idea to use a blow dryer to speed the procedure and in the
process glue your butt crack together.
After almost 2 hours of pulling spines
and peeling dried glue from your gluteal cleft, all that can be done has been
done. The roommates finally come home
with duct tape, which does absolutely nothing.
You ask your mother to pull one last splinter from your back, and after
pinching the fire out of you 3 times in a row without getting the splinter out,
you remember why getting splinters as a child was terrifying. You enlist the help of your father who
immediately gets his gear. He emerges
armed with a magnifying loupe and an LED light and calls to mother to hold the
light, making it feel more like a surgical procedure than splinter removal.
However, as he does not draw blood, you have no complaint.
The point of this story is, don’t fall onto a prickly pear
and if you do, be precise in your application of glue.
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