I’m still waiting for the second installment from the writing group, so I’m taking this in a direction I want to go with it. Since Gigi was stolen I haven’t felt much like writing fiction, but this will let her live on in other people’s hearts. If you want to start at the beginning click here
While the Big Dumb Guy was fixing me up (who I didn’t know at the time was really a Fire Witch) far far away someone was working to make my life miserable. Well not me personally, this was a long time before we actually met face-to-face, before I was even made, but he was working to make riding a bicycle a miserable experience, and by extension miserable for the bicycles that could be miserable, like me.
His name was Sheik Raht el Ennrahl, and he has a lot of oil. I mean a LOOOOHHHHTTT of oil, under a very small kingdom, which makes him Very Rich, but only as long as people buy his oil. So he uses the money from his oil to make people do things that make other people buy (more of) his oil. He could have invested his money in researching things that can be made from oil, but he didn’t. Instead he spent his money on a machine that made car gas from his oil. So if he wanted to make money from his oil people would have to drive cars and use lots of gas. Riding bicycles doesn’t use any gas, so Sheik Raht hated bicycles.
“Look at all those millions of people riding bicycles!” he shouted at his council of minions. “Not one of them is using a drop of my gas. This cannot go on, how can I get them to stop riding bicycles and start driving big cars that use lots of my gas?”
One of the minions shyly raised his hand. “Sheik?” he quivered. “I have an idea, but it will take a long time.”
“Well, the oil isn’t going anywhere by itself, we have time,” answered Sheik Raht.”What is your idea?”
“Make people riding bicycles look silly,” answered the minion, who came from the tiny town of Yobuhti at the farthest edge of Sheik Raht’s kingdom, about a half-hour’s bicycle ride from the Sheik’s palace. “We build lots of small bicycles for children, that aren’t very good for riding to school or for adults to ride to work, and we tell children that riding these bikes is cool. All the cool kids start riding bicycles that aren’t very good for riding and carrying stuff, that all you can do with them is just ride short distances and look “cool” while riding. Then we start saying that because kids ride bicycles but don’t actually do anything riding them that bicycles are just toys for children, and that people riding bicycles are just children that never out grew their toys.”
“But what about all those adult bikes that people are already using to get places and do things?” asked Sheik Raht, “Those thing last almost forever, and are very useful. And like I said, there are millions of people riding them.”
“It doesn’t matter, people have short memories, and if we tell them long enough that riding a bicycle is for children, then the children will believe it and grow up to be adults that believe it, and drive cars that use lots of your gas and make you rich. Well, richer, you’re already rich.” said the minion. “I even know the perfect place to start with your plan, a country called the United States. They already use most of the gas you make, but they have so much space to drive their cars in they could always use more gas.”
So they started on their plan, by building lots and lots of small bicycles for children. As hard as they tried though they couldn’t really make the bicycles bad, because if it works a bicycle is still a pretty wonderful thing. And I don’t say that just because I am a bicycle, lots of human beings say that also. But because these were such small bicycles and because there was no way to carry stuff on them, or to ride them in the rain because there were no mudguards or fenders put on them, or ride them very far because they didn’t have the right gears, when people grew up they quit riding them, mostly. There were still a few people that bought bicycles that were big enough for adults to ride and that had fenders and racks and baskets to ride in the rain and carry things, but not as many as had before, and more people drove cars to get places in the rain and carry things and they had been taught that children rode bicycles and they believed it because when they were children they had ridden bicycles and liked it, so it must be just for kids. They didn’t realize that they were being tricked, that riding bicycles was fun because it just is, not because it’s for children.
Then the Sheik and his minions made larger bicycles that were just like the children’s bicycles, with no fenders or racks or baskets to carry things, and also made them very poorly so that they would fall apart soon after they were taken from the store, and they told the people “See? See how quickly this bicycle falls apart? It’s only a toy, you can’t use it for doing adult things.” And other people also said the same thing, because these were really yucky bicycles. I don’t know how they did it, but these bicycles were actually not fun to ride even when they were new. My human calls these things “BSO” or Bicycle Shaped Objects. They look like bicycles, and they can be ridden like a bicycle if you’re very careful, but they aren’t actually bicycles. If you’re smart like a Fire Witch then you can take a BSO and work majicks into it and make it into a real bicycle, but it takes a long time to learn how to do that. My Fire Witch says it took him about 20 years to learn how, but it’s a moving target because the BSO are less and less like bicycles and more and more like junk before they even leave the store, so that there is less and less that you can use from a BSO to make a real bicycle out of it.
So, by the time I was made Sheik Raht el Ennrahl and his minions had been making and selling BSO for almost 20 years, and real bicycles were very hard to find in the United States where I was. You had to be careful of where you stepped to keep from tripping on all the messed-up and worn-out BSO that people would just leave where they stopped working, but real bicycles were hard to find. And because the Sheik’s BSO were almost the only kind of “bicycle” that most people knew they didn’t think “transportation” when they saw one, they thought “toy”. And because all they had to use for carrying stuff was cars they thought cars were the only thing you could use to carry stuff and get around. And you know how people get about playing with toys in the street, they get upset. Then they started calling people that had real bicycles names and yelling at them and trying to hurt them, because they thought the people were playing in the street instead of using a bicycle to get where they needed to go with the stuff they needed to carry. That’s the way things were when I “woke up” and discovered I was Gigi.
to be continued
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I like these light Feeds
Yes, I really like these light Feeds. Easy to filter, easy on what’s left of my mind, and easy to place in a coherent format for your reading. It’s a win-win-win situation.
Up first because something has to be is another report on the kid riding from PA to CA to raise money for breast cancer (Save the Ta-Tas!) . Cyclist raising money for cancer is killed From witness reports this may have been a deliberate act of aggression, but we won’t know for sure until the Bureau of Indian Affairs completes its investigation. Again just going from unconfirmed reports this was a hit-from-behind wreck, so use the appropriate parts of the protocol from the page linked at the top of my blog.
Infrastructure! Cyclist’s Death Spurs Push for Alabama Road Safety This was the TN wreck I reported on here a while back where the truck driver couldn’t see the cyclist in the shadows of the trees and hit her hard enough to send her body 166 feet from the point of impact. I’m not sure if any infrastructure changes can be made that will make drivers control their speeds by how far they can see and stop before hitting something, but making roads that are not just for cars but are designed for everybody to use will make a difference in the long run.
An example of poorly planned bicycle infrastructure has poor lighting and attracts predators after dark. After dark, Beach bike path becomes crime corridor Yes, a few more lights, a little police presence, and more people using the path after dark would pretty much “fix” the problem. Isolated, poorly lit, and unpoliced areas are like happy hunting grounds for human trash that preys on other people…
And that’s all the news that gives me fits.
Billed @$0.02, Opus
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Posted in Daily Feed
Tagged cycling life, cyclist killed, Don't read the comments, hit from behind, infrastructure, stupid drivers, stupid politicians, waste of human skin