I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person. It's possible that, as something of an academic, I lack some common sense, but really. I'm not stupid. Which means that last night, when I decided to ride my bike home, someone had stolen my brains and replaced them with oatmeal when I wasn't looking.
I had left my bicycle on campus all week, and decided that it was high time it came home. I also needed it this morning. So, despite the fact that it was dark, cold, and snowy, and that I didn't have my helmet with me, I decided to ride it home. I thought about the bus, but I have an irrational fear that the driver will not listen to me when I say I need to get my bike off the bike rack and drive away with it. Anyway. I rode on the sidewalk because I'm not completely brain-dead, and planned on walking the last stretch because the lights are bad.
I was doing just fine when, out of the blue, it happened. I started to slip. In one of those omniscient-disaster-moments, I knew I was going to bite it.
And I bit it. I saw the inevitable and had a moment where time stood still...and then the wheel was going right and I was going left and crashing into the wet sidewalk and there was another moment where I was very lucidly aware that in the next second my head was going to bounce off the ground. It did. Then I was in fast-forward again, realized I had lost my hat, ripped both my gloves, and was standing up already - the ground was cold. I got my act together, cursed a lot, made sure I wasn't bleeding and was probably not concussed, and walked the rest of the way home.
I'm fine now, other than being a little sore. My left knee got skinned through jeans, and my right hand is skinned, and my gloves are ruined. The two friends I told both asked if I was ok, and then immediately asked if the bike was ok. Which is how I know they really care ;)
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