I had listened with amusement when other friends had talked about their husbands' obsessions with cars or model airplanes or motorcycles, etc. They'd even warned me that it was just a matter of time and money before something captivated Chris's attention. I would nod and smile secretly disputing their assurance.
A close friend of mine in Georgia, whose name shall remain confidential, had been dealing with her husband's obsession for years, but instead of bicycles, he was infatuated with tractors. At first her husband would look longingly at page after page of tractors on the internet, spending hours of evening family time making price comparisons and dreaming of luxury options. Then he began trying to convince her of the benefits of new, air conditioned, fancy tractors even though he was not a farmer and already had a tractor to tinker with. She was not persuaded and tried to ignore him, but she noticed that he began telling all his friends about the various tractors he had seen and what he could do with them. Still, she was not worried. "It's just a phase," she told herself. "He'll get over it soon." But then the magazines started coming in the mail. Slowly at first with just one or two, until soon a tractor magazine could be found in every room of her house. It wasn't until she found tractor magazines stuffed between their mattresses that she knew he needed help.
I had thought that such an obsession could never control Chris, but I was noticing more and more of the same signs that my Georgia friend had seen in her husband. At first the signs were subtle. It was tabs left open on the computer featuring fancy bikes and bookmarked links to them in the menu. "I'm just looking," he would say when I would politely remind him that he didn't need a bicycle. He'd had a bicycle for three years during law school, and for three years, that bicycle had sat in our shed collecting cobwebs. We'd sold it in a yard sale for $10 three years and three moves ago, and we'd considered it good riddance--one less thing to move.
But now, Chris was constantly on the internet, and I would catch him quickly changing screens when I walked into the room, like he was trying to hide something. He had already convinced all his friends that he needed a bike, and daily he was touting the merits of bicycle ownership to me. He was even pricing bicycle child carriers. It didn't help that at least three of his friends had enhanced his romance with stories of family bike rides to the park. I knew it was just a matter of time until I would catch him sneaking bicycle magazines into the house, or worse yet, into our bed!
Still, I held firm to my conviction that he didn't need a bicycle, mainly because I didn't want to spend the money on something that he would quickly lose interest in and then would be mad about having to move in November. I constantly reiterated this fact to him, but I could see the longing in his eyes. He really, really wanted a bicycle. I still said no.
And then one weekend, I got really sick. I was delirious with fever, and he took advantage of my weakness and convinced me that he had found a great buy on Craig's List for a 10-speed bike. It was an older model, but it was in excellent condition, he had said. Desperate for him to leave me alone and to take some of the kids with him, I had agreed to the purchase. I'd gone back to sleep.
Two hours later, I awoke to find a raggedy yellow bicycle in our living room with Jacob and Benjy dancing around it. For days I'd been finding pictures of sleek, state-of-the-art, exquisitely engineered bicycles, but this bicycle was so far out of that league it could barely even be called a bicycle. Yes, it had two thread bare tires and a beat up frame, but from the looks of it, he wouldn't be able to ride it far, if he could even get it out of the parking lot.
"You drove to Maryland for that?" I asked.
"Yep," Chris said with pride.
"And you paid $40 for that?" I asked more insistently.
"Yep," he said again. The bike must be at least 25 years old. And the worse part is, it's only a Huffy. It probably hadn't cost $40 new when someone had bought it at K-Mart.
I rolled my eyes and went back to bed.
On Chris's first test ride, the pitiful tires deflated completely and the gear shift broke in half. So back to the computer he went, but this time he searched Amazon and Ebay for all the parts that he would need to get his new bicycle in working order. After a week of waiting for his new tires and tubes to arrive in the mail, Chris rigged the gear shift so it was somewhat functional, borrowed a bicycle pump from an encouraging friend, attached his new wheels and set out on his first real ride, only to discover that his bicycle was definitely going to need new brake pads as well. It was a short ride, and thank God he didn't crack his head open.
So for now, Chris's bicycle is a work in progress. He's currently dreaming of paint colors, seats, handle bars, and gear shifts. Maybe it will be ready to ride before we move to Mexico.
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