I Win!

I feel like a little kid again. When I was four years old my father threw down the gauntlet. He told me, "In order to get a brand new bicycle you have to swim across the pool without any help." I spent days perfecting my dog paddle... although I preferred doing cannon balls and belly flops off the deck. But since the Nebraska summer only lasts from early June until the first week of September, my pool days were numbered. The summer I was five- I finally did it. I made it across the pool. I made my mother buy me some tiny swimmer goggles so I felt like a legitimate swimmer as I took my victory lap clumsily (it was the dog paddle after all) around the small pool.

Dad took me shopping and there is was: The Pink Schwinn. He tried to talk me into the black and yellow mountain bike with the fenders, but I was not taking the bait. It was the pink bike or bust.

I road it out of the store and down the streets of Yankton, South Dakota to show my mother who was shopping nearby. Of course, my father being very frugal, the bike was a smidge too big even with the seat at the lowest setting. My father had to hold me by the back seat while I wobbled down the sidewalk.

I pimped that Schwinn with tassels and the little spoke jewels. I tried to negotiate with my father (the former college swimmer) that if I learned the freestyle I could get a horn, the backstroke would warrant a bike rack, and the butterfly (which I still to this day cannot do because my shoulders are too damned weak) would be worth teal handlebars.

I had forgotten all this enthusiasm of my youth until just a few days ago. I had forgotten how happy that little pink bike made me-- and how hard I had to practice to get it. I had forgotten all of that until now.

Because: I WIN! My $10 garage sale mountain bike was stolen a few months ago-- but I totally won my auction on ebay this weekend for Sweet Pink Bike #2. And what did I do to earn it? Well I'm an adult now- and I love my tens and tens of dollars of disposable income.

Sh-sha! Check it:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150164529895&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:11#ebayphotohosting