Hey, look at this!
The Good Lady waggled her phone at me as if it were a beagle with big ears and we were playing at Shake the Beagle till it BURPS!™
I looked somewhat disdainfully at her phone. I couldn't help it. At some point, like 102% of wives, she had dropped it and cracked the screen. Despite my pleading, she had never gotten it fixed and looking at things on her screen was like looking through a broken shed window at an old and sad shoe.
Oh aye, something about kids learning to ride a bike. Very good.
I turned my attention snootily back to glueing my little toenail back together as it had decided over the last two months that it wanted to identify as a double nail and was attempting to split itself right down the middle.
I was refusing to play along with such a charade. Hence the glue.
It's great isn't it? A total bargain at £60. Shall I book the little guy in for it?
The Good Lady clucked at the idea of spunking money we couldn't afford up a wall.
It's fucking how much? Sixty bucks? To teach a kid to ride a bike? For fuck sake, that's robbery?!
I sputtered indignantly as if a mermaid was offering me a foot job for a fiver.
it's a scam you see, they don't have feet
But it would be so quick, it says it is a two-afternoon course and at the end of it he will be riding a bike like a pro!
The Good Lady had that determined look about her, the one she got when she was eating sardines on toast.
Fucking hell, woman. I will teach him to ride a bike and it will cost us nothing! I mean, haven't I taught all our children how to ride?
I mimed riding a bike which is pretty much the same as miming a Frenchman getting comfy on a wooden stool.
You have only taught one, your daughter. For some reason, it hasn't clicked with the Little Boom.
She looked at me sternly, her lips thin like budget spaghetti.
I brushed her stern look off, after all, I fucking loved spaghetti regardless of its thickness.
I looked outside and saw that there was a momentary dry spell in between the weeks of rain we had been having.
I will take him out just now. Half an hour and he will be riding it like one of those crazy Deliveroo fuckers on the bikes with tyres like New York Bagels.
I nodded confidently. I wasn't about to pay some fucking bearded twit sixty bucks to teach my son how to ride. I mean where would those kinds of shenanigans end?
Cheerily, I called upstairs for the Little Boom. It was time for that boy to learn.
Some twenty minutes later I wiped the rain from my glasses and caught the Little Boom again as he fell off his bike with all the grace of a sausage rolling off a TV cabinet.
Dude, just pedal and try to stay up!
I let him go once more and promptly had to catch him again as he displayed all the agility of a sack of washing.
Daddy, can we go in now? The rain is getting really heavy?
The Little Boom pleaded wetly.
Sighing, I nodded. The last twenty minutes had been hell on earth. The little guy just had no balance. Whatsoever. As soon as he sat on the bike it fell over. It had more chance of staying upright when he wasn't on it.
Then it had started pouring down.
I was defeated.
As we headed back to the front door of the house, the Good Lady threw it open and welcomed us in with a victorious smile.
I acknowledged her with a nod and hissed low in her direction.
Take your damned sixty pounds woman. I will have nothing to do with this devilry.
