Hindsight is really not as useful as foresight. I’ve had situations where foresight was trying desperately to make a connection with me but the override feature in my brain wouldn’t let me respond in a way that would prevent certain circumstances. I remember one such incident with “certain circumstances” that I wish I could forget.
It was a hot and humid July afternoon. There were not a lot of kids my age in the tiny little town I grew up in but there were always a couple to hang out with and as my luck would have it, those two usually wanted to hang out with me at the same time. I became the mediator or the one “caught in the middle” when it came to these two particular friends of mine. They didn’t click all that well but I clicked with both of them and every once in a while I would suggest we all hang out together. I remember one day in particular. Some of the details are fuzzy but the end result remains crystal clear unfortunately. I was at Jill’s house and we decided to ride our bikes over to Stephanie’s house. We raced outside to get on our two wheeled wonders and quickly realized I didn’t have mine with me. Hmmm, now what? Jill said, “Why don’t you ride my brother’s bike. He’s not home and as long as we put it back where we found it, he won’t even know.”
It seemed like a harmless plan. We would only be gone for a little while and he surely wouldn’t have a clue we borrowed his bike if it was right where he left it when he gets home. What could possibly go wrong, right?
We unanimously agreed and off we strolled, down the street to Stephanie’s house. When we arrived there were a couple of vehicles in the narrow driveway but still room for us to park our bikes. This is where foresight was attempting to establish a connection with my brain. I got off the bike and lowered the kickstand. I began to walk away but I heard a faint message coming from my brain. I believe it said “This is not a good spot for this bike. What if someone decides to back the car out of the driveway. They will run it o-v-e-r!” I know I heard these words but the thrill of playing Barbies and eating ice cream bars and drinking pop in the air conditioned comfort of Stephanie’s play room stifled the soft spoken logic coming from that place in my brain that was trying to keep Jill’s brother from killing us. Before long we were planning a vacation to Hawaii for Barbie and packing her suitcase and driving her to the airport in her Barbie car to get on the Barbie airplane! Life was good…..that is until our travel plans for Barbie were interrupted by someone yelling something down the stairs from the kitchen. Stephanie went to see what they were saying and upon her return to the Barbie International Airport she said, “Someone parked a bike behind the car and my sister just ran over it.” You could have knocked me over with the feather from one of Barbie’s hats! Life as I knew it and Jill knew it was over. O-V-E-R! If Stephanie’s parents didn’t kill us Jill’s parents would and if they spared us my parents would kill us and if we talked them out of it her brother was surely going to kill us.
The dust eventually settled and frazzled nerves calmed down and once we decided Stephanie’s parents weren’t going to let her sister back over us we went outside to have a look at the wreckage. It wasn’t good. The wheels were no longer round. They were sort of shaped like jelly beans. The handle bars were flat and no matter what we tried, we couldn’t make it look the same as it did when we took it out of Jill’s yard. Quickly, I offered my dad’s services. He was a blacksmith and he was able to repair almost anything! Unfortunately we learned he could fix almost anything EXCEPT bikes that had been run over by stupid big sisters! I’m sure Jill’s brother got a new bike. I’m not sure if my dad offered to pay for it but it might explain why my dad had such an enormous garden every year and probably why he would share his fresh organic produce with my friend’s parents. I think I just figured out why he thought I should weed the mile long row of green beans now too. This was torture because I didn’t even like green beans! Dad was a smart man!