| My Big Wheel I loved my Big Wheel. At the age of five it was all I knew of freedom. It gave me the option of following the open road wherever I pleased. I could travel with the wind in my hair and the gravel crunching beneath my hollow plastic wheels. But one day that all ended. My Big Wheel naivet� was gone forever. Some things not even a Big Wheel can fix, much to my chagrin, not even the Strawberry Shortcake model. That day was much like any other. My brother made plans to go bike riding with one of his friends and I made plans to follow them. Unfortunately the town of Newton, New Hampshire made plans to pave the road in front of our house, which in turn hindered our plans. But did we give up? Hell NO! We decided that riding up and down the same street had lost its previous glamour and we needed a change anyway. Mike, Tim, and I began our bike quest in a place we had yet to ever even dare bring our bikes (okay bikes and Big Wheel) before. I told my father we were going out riding, then we headed for the woods. We failed to realize that riding out too far into the woods might be a little stupid. In face, to the contrary, we thought it was a brilliant idea. We went further into the forest than we had ever gone. After a while I started to complain. I was tired because, as we all know, powering a Big Wheel requires a lot of strength. I was riding slowly and quickly falling behind. My brother yelled at me and his friend complained. Neither action could have helped the situation. I was tired of listening so I put my bitch on. My brother soon learned hell hath no fury like a five-year-old that is tired and wants to go home. Of course, for a five-year-old girl with a BA in cute and a PhD in pouting, putting your bitch on consists of lots of tears and sobbing noises. I pleaded with them to turn around and head home, but despite my amazing talent, my actions were to no avail. We traveled for quite some time arguing till we came onto a road that I had never seen before. Well I had, at that point, had just about enough. For the fifteenth time I informed them that we were turning around and going back the way we came. They said we couldn�t because they were lost. Now you can imagine how incensed that information made me. If we had turned around when I first began my tirade of pouttery(yes I just made that word up) we would have been home. But that wasn�t what happened, so we had to try and figure out where we were. While we were aimlessly riding we spotted a police car and I made my brother flag him down. The cop asked where we lived and when we told him he laughed. I had no idea why it was funny but when I got home I found out. It seemed me had ridden all the way to Amesbury, Massachusetts, a trip of nearly ten miles. It also seemed my father had forgotten about my telling him we were leaving. He had been driving around looking for us all in a tizzy. When we got home he was livid. He yelled, then he grounded us forever. In fact, if it were not for my mother being pregnant and too sick to deal with enforcing the punishment, we would still be grounded today. After that experience I set my Big Wheel out to pasture and entered the crazy, fast paced world of two wheelers. I realized the best mode of transportation for journeys, in excess of one-fifth of a mile, was in no way a Big Wheel and I never looked back. |