Now I need you to imagine that instead of electric blue, it's a faded sorta metallic purple. Kind of the color of melted bubblegum ice cream, if the Terminator were trying to be melted bubblegum ice cream. And the seat? The seat is blue. Not just any blue, though. It's translucent metalflake blue. Yeah - that kind of amazing bit of '70s materials science where they imbedded mica in vinyl. The chrome - now the chrome is pitted and rusty. The fenders are gone. And the back tire has been incongruously replaced with a drag slick.

My dad had this nasty habit of putting off any "gifts" until the day before and he was drunk. this meant birthdays were skipped often. But for some reason, probably because he heard someone had a deal on it, I ended up with this "bike" at six.

Now pretend you can't get up any given street without standing on the pedals because your town is sprayed across five mesa tops.

When I was twelve I stole my dad's bike - he'd bought some ridiculous Sears Stumpjumper knock-off that had ten speeds, cheap shitty shifters and a frame that must have been made out of conduit it weighed so much. It did, however, have 30" wheels with 2" wide tires so at least I went from one ridiculous extreme to another.

I stopped riding bikes altogether at 14, no doubt because I was sick of being mocked.