“Let Me Take A Selfie”

This is the last photo taken before I taco’d Kevin’s wheel.

The inexplicable force that we call “Selfies” has led me down a dark (bike) path of self destruction.

Lesson learned.

It was a beautiful day, it was even “ride your bike to work” day. The sun was shining as we joyfully cruised home along the Santa Monica bike path. As any sensible, life-loving (and slightly reckless) person would do, I pulled out my phone for a photo.

Distracted by bliss, I failed to notice the stopping boyfriend just a few feet in front of me. The thought crossed my mind to hit the brakes, I even reverted back to my fixed gear days and tried to pedal backwards. However, with my phone in one hand and a peace sign in the other, I was useless. In slow motion I yelled “don’t stop!,” but it went unheard.

To avert crisis, I pulled to the left and narrowly missed Kevin’s body. Unfortunately, however, his rear wheel wasn’t so lucky.

The deed was done, my spirits were crushed, and my iPhone independently downloaded the “Spider Man” app on its brief slide across the sun-kissed pavement.

Throughout the past few months we’ve taken self-defense classes, we’ve been shot up with vaccinations, but it turns out the only thing Kevin has to worry about… is me.

Almost immediately, doubts began to creep up my slightly bruised knee-caps. How will we make it through 12,000 miles of cycling around the world when we can’t even make it out of Santa Monica?

This was a test, an obvious one, but we handled it well. We could have been upset at one another, but instead we laughed at my utter stupidity and decided to blog about it. If this is a reflection of how Kevin and I are going to handle hardship while on the road, I couldn’t be happier (despite the hefty $140 price tag for this blog post).

This is the selfie I managed to capture just seconds before I self-destructed. Looks like I was holding my breath.

 #fail