My sister Sarah is three years younger than I. She, like me and like the rest of us, is not very athletic, nor does she enjoy doing any sort of exercise. (We were recently laughed at for saying we were really bad at sports when someone asked us if we wanted to play beer pong, "beer pong doesn't take any athleticism!" they told us. They put the two of us on a team against three moms who had never played before. After we won (barely), they understood why we said that.) Until a month ago, I would say the last time Sarah did anything more strenuous than hustling to class or breaking it down on the dance floor was exactly four years ago, the summer before her senior year of high school, when the dean realized that she didn't have enough P.E. credits to graduate, so we took a free yoga class at the ATMA center, which is across the street from the Shell gas station (which will make an appearance later in this story). Sarah doesn't have her drivers license, and she is not terribly good with directions (it is close enough to walk to from our house), so I drove her and went with her to each class - and we had fun doing it together, and would have the other one to wake us up if we started to drool during the meditation at the end of class, and have the other to giggle with about the old men in our class. Not to mention exercise and PE credits.
Last month, a hot day in June, my brother had a day off of work so we decided to make a day and sip and swim. Sandy made us de-licious drinks, and our other brother joined us with his wife and baby, and my dad came too when he got home from work. Because we had been outside most of the afternoon, we didn't make any plans for dinner, nor did my brother have any cigarettes left. This may seem insignificant, but it becomes a pivotal moment in the day. I suggested that we get my favorite pizza, but since they don't deliver, I offered to pick it up. Sarah offered to ride her bike to go get Sandy some more cigarettes. You may be thinking, why didn't I just pick them up when I was out? Very reasonably I did make this offer, but Sarah said she was feeling sluggish, and was just itching to get her blood moving. We all made sure she knew the way, and made her repeat to us that she knew where to go. When Sarah went to get her (or rather my mother's) beautiful powder blue bike with a basket on the front from the garage, she realized that the tires were both flat (like I said, none of us are very athletic, including Mom, so she hadn't ridden it in a while). But, she was going for it, she had already decided that she was doing this, so she found the pump next to it, and started to pump the tires back into shape. She was out there for quite a while, the rest of us were inside ordering pizza and waiting for it to be ready, we didn't realize that she had not left yet. And, to be totally honest, we were giggling (well at least I was) that she was so gung-ho do to this. It was a little out of character. Before I left to get the pizza with my dad, we did see her roll out.
The timing for the next part of this story is better than I could have made up. Just as we are pulling home and parking, my dad and I see Sarah, Teddy, and Sandy all stepping out of the Suburban, and then pulling the bicycle out of the trunk, and Sarah's head was down down down in shame. I at first was worried she was hurt, but then I was just really curious what happened. This is the story she told, and it took me asking many questions to get every detail:
After working on the tires for a long time, she finally decided to just give up on the front one and ride the bike a total of 7 blocks to the gas station - on one flat tire. When she got there, she was a little tired, but went inside and asked for a carton of camels, or whatever it was Sandy asked her to get. The cashier asked to see her ID, and she reached into her carpet bag purse. When she was doing that, she started to sway back and forth and had to hold on to the counter to get her balance. The cashier asked if she was ok, and she barely mustered out "no" before she fainted! Poor Sarah! The paramedics came, and she tried to tell them that she was fine, she was fine. They checked her pulse or whatever it is paramedics do when you faint, and they called home to get the boys to come pick her up. They asked her some questions like why did she think this happened: "because I rode my bike for five minutes and that is the most physical activity I've ever done." What did she have for lunch? "three chocolate covered donuts." I don't remember the other questions, but those had the best answers. So they called our house and the brothers came to get her. She was so embarrassed by the whole thing, she didn't even eat any pizza, well, not until she took a tiny nap and drank tons of water.
I should add - Sarah is really thin, and she doesn't always eat like this. Now that I think about it, maybe she does.
Finally! Conclusive proof!
ReplyDelete