Your Bike is Over

Yesterday, after doing a few errands (a word that always makes me think of my mother), I was coming home and I decided to pop into the bike shop. My bike, which used to belong to F's father and sat in a garage for fifteen years unused, has been having a few problems lately. The second gear quit working and then I noticed that, as I rounded a corner, the pedal drags. It actually hits the ground and makes a disturbing sound.

When I mentioned this to F, he said, "When I make a turn, I always have that pedal up."

"I know, but the whole thing seems lower," I said.

Then about a week ago, I was coming home from choir rehearsal with a soprano, Dorothy, and she said, "Your bike is so low."

I said, "Yeh. I know. It feels lower. Like the whole thing is a good ten centimeters lower." But how could that be? The seat has gone down, I know, but how can the whole thing be lower?

I rolled my bike into the shop and a young kid with incredibly clear and porceline skin, approached. I told him that my second gear wasn't working. I was planning on going into the other few things that have been bothering me, plus the "low" issue.

"Oh. I think I see the problem," he said. "I'm afraid your bike is over."

"Over?" I immediatly understood. "You mean like a story or a song. It's over."

"Yes." He showed me where the welding on the frame had popped.

"Is there no way to fix it?"

"None. But we have used bikes for 115 euros." Then he showed me some new bikes.

F's response was, "Ton really screwed me by taking my mother's bike." When his parent's things were dispersed, F was supposed to get his mother's bike (And why do we need a girl bike?) but his brother, Ton, asked for it for his wife, Mariana.

"He didn't know it would break," I said.

"Still."

So today after Riekerhof, I am going to buy a new bike.