Sexy Legs, Yes?

Living at the opposite end of town from the High School, and always running late, for everything, I realized it was necessary to ride my bicycle to school one morning in order to get there right on time - 5 minutes after the bell sounded. I was an habitual late arrival, so I knew I could wander along at my own leisurely pace on my lovely red bike, but I chose to go as fast as possible as it was just so uncool for a 15 year old girl to be seen doing such a thing.

I dressed for school, and spent the regulation 45 minutes to 1 hour fixing my hair and mascara, then shot out the door and hopped aboard my glorious red Malvern Star. It had been a Christmas gift when I was 12 years old. As I hurtled off around the corner onto South Street, a car hooted it's horn at me and swirved sharply as it passed me by. I was about to hurl a colorful assortment of words I had not learned from school, when I noticed 2 faces in the back window of the car looking back at me.

Boys!

Thank heavens they kept going. Hopefully they don't remember my face, but I will need to remember both of them in case I see them at some socially spectacular event where I would need to hide from them and the ridicule. I continued on towards my school. I had shaved my legs the night before, and my nails were manicured; I felt so beautiful. I must have had sexy legs, I'm sure, or why would they have noticed me in the first place, right?

My hair was blowing in the breeze...much to my horror since I had spent all of that time perfecting every last hair and carefully securing it in place with copious amounts of environmentally unfriendly, cheap hair spray. It was unthinkable that I would wear a safety helmet though, that would never do, and where would I hide that when I got to school anyway? It was bad enough pulling in on that dorky bicycle!

Almost there, the bell must surely have sounded by now, but that's OK as I can arrive relatively unnoticed and sneak into class. Rounding the corner I suddenly heard a familiar sound. HOOT. I felt a hot rush come over me, as if someone had poured a bucket of warm water over my head. I was in a very posh neighborhood by this time, maybe I could hide behind one of those huge old oak trees if I was quick enough. I was looking back, and they were stopping by the curb. Still looking back I was curious who it was, of course. So curious I didn't realize I was headed directly for the rear end of a gorgeous new Mercedes which was parked as if on parade outside our local Doctor's home.

You can guess the rest, there simply was no way to escape it. I hit that Merc as square as could be right in the rear and my lustrous long hair shot past my face like I had a 100mph tail wind. I flew across the handlebars and landed on the trunk of that lovely silver machine, with my checkered skirt half way up my back and my dignity half way to 'you know where'. All I could think of was those boys, and had they seen me? YES! They were laughing so hard that one of them was rolling on the lawn beside the car. I was never so embarrassed as I was at that second, and I don't think I have been ever since.

I am giggling to myself as I write this because I'm now 44,with a 16 year old of my own, who incidentally wouldn't ride a "dorky bike" if I paid her $300 per week. But I have to tell you honestly that I may well have had a compound fracture of my left femur and a severed artery in my head somewhere and I don't think I would have noticed the blood flow and impending death - the pain was coming elsewhere, my pride.