The Pushbike
This story was told to me by Mike. He recounted it to me as a first-party story, but I have reservations.
It seems, according to Mike, that he’d gone down to the wholesalers on his pushbike. His intention was to purchase himself a bottle of whisky to take home to rock himself to sleep with.
No reservations so far. It all seems like a pretty good plan.
When Mike re-emerges from the bottle store he is clutching a bottle of 100 Pipers which he proceeds to careful place in the cane basket attached to the handlebars of his bike.
First reservation right here: it might be my prejudice, but I was envisaging Mike’s bike as a pretty sporty road-racer style that maybe required the wearing of the unfortunate lycra that seems to adorn cyclists these days. The cane basket came as a bit of a shock, and now I find myself having to adjust my mental imagery to accommodate this unexpected development!
Anyway, so now we’ve got the image-adjusted bike with the cane basket containing the bottle of 100 Pipers on the handlebars.
Back to the story.
As Mike is about to get on the bike to pedal himself and the whisky home he is approached by a bystander.
“Excuse me,” says the bystander, “but that’s not a very safe arrangement you’ve got there.”
“Why not?” asks Mike. “What’s wrong with it? Me and this consenting bottle of whisky are just going home together.”
“What happens if you fall off?” asks the bystander “The bottle will land on the ground and get broken,” he says. “Very dangerous”, he says.
“Good point,” says Mike. “What do you suggest?”
“I think the best answer is to drink the whisky now, and then ride home,” says the bystander. “Then if you fall off there won’t be anything in the basket to get broken.”
“And do you know what?” Mike says to me. “He was quite right, and possible was a fortune teller too.
“I followed his advice and drank all the whisky before I left. And on the way home I fell off nine times!
“just as well the bottle wasn’t in the cane basket, eh!”