Want to hear a really funny story? It may make you feel better about your life choices. So yesterday, we pull into camp at Breaks Interstate Camp. This is one of these spots that families use to "get outside", the kind with a camp store and cabins and little campgrounds with numbers on them. Hanging out next to us was a bunch of families with kids.
I get out of the shower and I'm riding my bike up towards camp when I see some of my friends sitting and watching these kids riding BMX bikes. One of them, about a 9 year old kid with really terrible teeth (that's not a value judgment; he really had terrible teeth) comes up to me and, in a thick Kentucky accent, proceeds to tell me that I am a giant weenie if I don't go off his bike ramp. There's a pregnant pause. My friends are looking at me. I use all my powers of adulthood. They fail me. I stall for time. Nothing is working. The universe is closing in. I hear a voice - mine? - agree to do this thing. I ride up the road. Accelerate. Close my eyes. Careen off the rock, and of course, immediately flip the bike, ass over tea kettle. Fortunately my body is soft and plush. I land on my shoulder. The pain is so intense I want to vomit. But I get up and, gritting my teeth, I slowly walk my bike back down to the bathroom, and wrap my shoulder in a hoodie sling.
So, you know, peer pressure - if a 9-year-old Kentucky kid can be called my peer - is a hell of a thing.
