Regardless of my opinion of overzealous, save-the-world, hacky-sacking tree-huggers, I have a real problem with the recent surge of people pedaling their bikes to work or to the store or to smuggle extra-terrestrials.
Growing up, there was a glowing “Social Deviant” beacon which allowed us to distinguish the total losers in the area by their bicycles. I am not talking about some Pygmalion-esque sense of telling your parents birthplace and income based on the model of Huffy bike you were riding (Huffy Challenger 3000 for me); I am referring to the fact that the only adults in my neighborhood that propelled themselves around on ten-speeds were the habitual drunk drivers that lost their licenses.
With this new focus on reducing carbon footprints, the middle-aged guy-on-a-Schwinn is no longer a foolproof way of determining who we need to point out and laugh at. Sure, you can still laugh at just about any adult on a bike…the new-wave, suburban hippy will likely be wearing a risible helmet, that color coordinates with the model he makes his handicapped children wear, just to make a four-minute ride on the sidewalk to get milk at the Kwik-E-Mart.
I guess we’ll just have to keep tabs on the dregs of society the old-fashioned way—looking for the red and white dots on the GoogleMap provided by the National Sex Offender Registry. Much the like rapist that lives across the street from Russ.
Growing up, there was a glowing “Social Deviant” beacon which allowed us to distinguish the total losers in the area by their bicycles. I am not talking about some Pygmalion-esque sense of telling your parents birthplace and income based on the model of Huffy bike you were riding (Huffy Challenger 3000 for me); I am referring to the fact that the only adults in my neighborhood that propelled themselves around on ten-speeds were the habitual drunk drivers that lost their licenses.
With this new focus on reducing carbon footprints, the middle-aged guy-on-a-Schwinn is no longer a foolproof way of determining who we need to point out and laugh at. Sure, you can still laugh at just about any adult on a bike…the new-wave, suburban hippy will likely be wearing a risible helmet, that color coordinates with the model he makes his handicapped children wear, just to make a four-minute ride on the sidewalk to get milk at the Kwik-E-Mart.
I guess we’ll just have to keep tabs on the dregs of society the old-fashioned way—looking for the red and white dots on the GoogleMap provided by the National Sex Offender Registry. Much the like rapist that lives across the street from Russ.
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