The Bike

I was very glad to see my husband doing something other than work. He has a high pressure job. He needed some release. He had no friends, except co workers. He needed friends outside of work.

So, when our neighbor , an avid cyclist from San Diego, suggested he go on a ride for the first time with him, I was happy. Genuinely pleased and excited for Husband.

Our neighbor's wife, as we watched the two men roll down the drive and ride off into the distance, turned to me and said, "I'm sorry. "

I must've had a quizzical look on my face, because she repeated it and added, " You'll understand in a month or so."

Well...she knew what she was talking about.

Coming home from that ride, Husband was sweaty. Husband was tired. Husband was dirty. Husband was excited. Husband was.......

HOOKED.

I would find him online googling different brands of bikes. All he had was a mountain bike ( purchased for that lovely PIE trip ) and it was "old." It wouldn't do.

Ok. I understood that. He needed a bike.

My thought was he could "make do" with the one he had until we could save up enough money to buy the bike he wanted. After all, that is what we had to do for our bedroom furniture, the deck, my laptop.....

So, as I watched the weeks progress, I noticed little things showing up in our garage.

A bunch of rubber tubes. Bontrager something or other, I don't know.

A pump.

Pedals.

Plastic water bottles.

Some cranky looking thingy.

A small toolbox.

WD-40. A lot of it. ????

Shimano clippy things.

Elf shoes. They must be elf TAP shoes, because he clicked when he walked in them.

Then came the bike shorts. A few pairs.

Socks.

Gloves.

Cool glasses.

A new helmet.

Bike jerseys.

And that was all ok with me. He told me he "NEEDED" that stuff to ride properly. I understood that. After all, as a scrapbooker, I realized in order to do things correctly and easily, I needed tools to help me do so. Understandable. Totally.

But we needed new living room furniture. I was desperate for it. It was a topic of conversation every night. And every night, I was informed it was just not in the budget.

Ok. I'd wait.

One Saturday not long after one of these furniture conversations, we were doing some yard work.

Husband came to me and told me he was running in to Home Depot to pick up some mulch and would be back shortly.

4 hours later, he returned.

"Where have you been? I tried to call your cell phone.... Were they out of the mulch we wanted and you had to drive somewhere else?"

" I had to run some other errands."

" OH? Like what?"

Husband has selective hearing. He didn't answer me.

THEN IT HIT ME.

" You did NOT go buy a bike, did you?!"

" Well, yeah. I stopped in, and it was a good price."

Did you ever see the cartoons where the cartoon character gets angry and you see the red boiling up thier body until it hits thier head and steam flies out of thier ears?

That's how I felt. I'm sure that's how I looked, because our children and the dogs all fled the immediate area.

"Give me the receipt."

He handed it over to me. I looked at it, and saw the financial carnage. It was a lot. And I couldn't even tell you what the hell kind of bike it was now, it was so many bikes ago. But it was A LOT.

Then I yelled. I stomped. I threw the dishrag.

I was pissed.

" Where the hell is the mulch!?!?" I spoke through gritted teeth.

" Oh. Yeah, I forgot to get it."Husband said as he quickly turned the corner and left the garage.

I followed. " You forgot the #($%*#@ mulch?!?!"

Into the house we went and his tongue lashing continued. I can't ever remember being so pissed.

Wait. Yes I can.The time we went to Home Depot to get glass doors and returned without the doors, but driving a new SUV. ("But YOU can drive it, hon." )

(note to self at this point.....NEVER let Husband go to Home Depot without a chaperone. )

" I don't understand why you are so upset, Wife. I told you I have been looking at bikes."

I could not believe it. ( "He's your's by choice, girlfriend," I reminded myself )

" Ok, Husband. Let me put this into perspective for you. In a simple way that even you can understand: I am going to go to the grocery store and come home with new living room furniture."

" But that is different."

" HOW!?!?"

" We don't need living room furniture. We have perfectly good couches already in there. "

"AND YOU HAVE A PERFECTLY GOOD BIKE IN THE GARAGE!" I shouted back.

" But I need a better one."

This is where I deadpan to the camera.

Sometimes, talking sense to a man who bikes is like nailing jell-0 to a tree.

After that,
The new rule at Chateau Bike Widow became: If Husband purchases expensive bike paraphanalia without discussing or informing Wife beforehand, Wife has FULL permission to respond in kind by purchasing something of equal or greater value....and Husband can say nothing about it.

PS. I got my living room furniture about 2 weeks later.