Lion and Magic Boy

I think I’ve got it figured out.

It came to me yesterday as I was on my bike ride, trying unsuccessfully to dodge the unusual number of tiny suicidal bugs in the air. Airborne, they looked like tiny fairies, their wings lit briefly by the angle of the waning sun, but on my bare arms and bare legs they felt like a rain of tiny beads of hail. I was being pelted by bugs. Tiny bugs.

So I’m now smoothly using the shifters on the new bike (you KNOW I kept it, of course!), reflecting on the first time I rode it, testing it out of the bike shop. They asked me if I was familiar with the shifters and I said semi-doubtfully that I had ridden a bike with them a year ago once, and waited for the guy to give me a brief rundown. He didn’t. Naturally I couldn’t ask him at that point, so I got on the bike and started riding.

It didn’t take long to figure out how to shift into a higher gear: I could see the lever, and a slight flick with a finger moved it to the side and shifted. Cool. Now we’re humming!

Oh, a hillish area. Better shift down, it’s getting hard to pedal. But…where is the lever thing that shifts down? Isn’t it right…here somewhere?

I pulled over and stopped the bike, and poked and prodded everything I could see in the area of the shift lever that I knew how to operate. No go. Nothing seemed to move. Damn.

So I tested the bike in the one gear, sure the bike shop people would be oh-so-impressed with my shifting acumen and my high-gear ability.

Oddly, every time I got back on the bike after we made various tweaks and changes, the gear was at a lower position. Was it shifting itself? How can that be?

So I took home a bike, basically, that I had no idea how to operate.

However! I figured that instructions could be found somewhere online. It’s not like I could, say, call the bike shop or anything and ask. That would be…painful.

Oh, have I not mentioned my problem with phone calls?

No?

Let me enlighten you then.

Once I broke it down like this: if I am calling a complete stranger, I’m okay. I can make the call. Like, say, making a reservation for something or ordering something (back in the dark ages when one had to use a phone for such things) or getting information on store opening times or something. Actually, all this can be done online now. Interesting! I may never need a phone again!

And, if it’s someone I know well that I’m calling, have scaled the Wall of Communication with and I know I am welcome anytime, then it’s okay too. Naturally, there aren’t many people in my life who fall into this category. I can think of 2.5 of them, maybe 3. Depends on my mood and the day.

But! if it’s someone I know only slightly that I have to call, it’s impossible. There are WAY too many variables involved, and ALL of them involve me making an ass of myself. Or at least, my supposition that I will do so. For one thing, I am convinced that someone I know slightly will not even remember who I am, and then I will be forced to explain this, dying of embarrassment at the same time.

See? This makes total sense, doesn’t it?

Once when I was about 12 I had to call the library to find out their hours. It was excruciating. I think it took most of a day to find the courage to make the call.

But that doesn’t approach what I did to poor Joe Arrietta.

Joe was a freshman to my sophomore and he inexplicably called my house once. My mom came to tell me I had a call and that it was him. I had never actually received a call from an actual boy before, so not only was it a novelty but I had no idea what the protocol was. And I was immediately convinced that he was calling for one reason: to ask me out.

Problem was, I had no interest in him. Zero. None. Hey, he was a freshman, after all! And his head was quite large. And his dad was my Social Studies teacher, which gave poor Joe extra pariah status. Mr. Arrietta was a decent teacher despite the apparent color-blindness that caused him to wear monochromatic outfits (all black for test days!), and his evident love of golf clothes that resulted in many pairs of plaid pants of all hues, but I basically enjoyed him (and he obviously didn’t hold my treatment of his son that day against me, as I continued to get A’s in his classes and a year later he nominated me for Girl’s State, and I went, but that’s another story entirely). I wondered if he knew his son was calling me. Ew.

So my mom tells me I have a call. From this kid Joe. I ask if I have to answer it, she gives me an odd look and says of course I do. I am allowed into the Parental Bedroom Sanctuary to have the necessary privacy with which to take this most sensitive call. I hesitate. I lie on my bed, hoping the situation will go away. It doesn’t. Ten minutes later my mom pokes her head in my door and asks me if I’m done on the phone. I mutely implore her for help, but her face remains impassive. Like Death with his bony finger, she silently points toward the Parental Bedroom Sanctuary, issuing the command. “Go. Answer. The Phone.”

I slink into the sanctuary. At once its usual darkness is stifling rather than welcoming. I sit on the side of the bed near the phone, and look at it. It’s off its cradle, lying carelessly on the night table. Taunting me. I tentatively lift the receiver and hold it. I cannot lift it high enough to listen or talk; my muscles remain paralyzed. I quietly set the receiver down again and let out a long breath. I get up and look out the window. I try not to think about the breathing, waiting person on the other end of the phone.

My mom comes in. “All done?” I point to the receiver lying wounded on the table, again hoping for help. I whisper fiercely to her, imploring, “Just tell him I’m not here!!!”

“No.”

And she leaves me again to my misery, my fate.

Finally, after about 45 minutes of agony, I lift the receiver to my ear. And hear a dial tone. Joe has hung up.

The event was never mentioned again, and he never spoke to me.

Joe, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. I hope it didn’t scar you for life or anything. But surely you can understand my handicap here.

Once a few years ago I was assigned the task of calling a bunch of school parents and asking them to donate money to the school. Great — phone calls AND begging. Together. I failed at this and eventually they assigned the task to someone else, much to my relief.

So you see why calling the bike shop to ask how to use my damned shifters was completely out of the question.

Nevertheless, I could turn to the internet for that, and it wasn’t long before I was happily, if not somewhat tentatively at first, shifting up (and down) through my gears.

See, my theory is that the internet was invented for people like me. People who can hide their dorkitudinousness by just looking stuff up in secret.

And then we go and blog about it publicly.

P.S. I’m going to BlogHer tomorrow, if I can get on a plane. Yay! Hundreds of women in one large conference ballroomy place! Rather like my idea of hell, actually, but I plan to have a wonderful time. Rooming with this one and that one, both of whom give great email. And blogging.

[tags] Shimano Ultegra, cycling, blogging, phone paranoia[/tags]