For the last couple of years that I lived in Yakima, mountain biking became my Thing. Yakima itself may be a dump, but it’s close to lots of beautiful mountainsandtrailsandskiingandhikingandbikingplaces. So there you go.

In order to get my strength and stamina up for our weekend jaunts to the mountains, I started riding my bike to my job at LocalComputerStore, which was about four miles each way. My favorite way to ride home was the dirt road along the railroad tracks that went through the older, historic parts of town.

Oh yeah. In order for this story to be funny, you need to know that back then I used to have my hair pretty long, in a mullet. Yes, a mullet. I usually kept it in a ponytail, though. That’s gotta count for something, right?

So picture this. I was riding along the tracks, with my ponytail and my helmet and my T-shirt and my long shorts. These two guys in a battered white Ford pickup came up behind me and honked, and PassengerSideGuy rolled the window down to yell, “Hey, nice tight ass!”

As they slowed down and pulled up alongside me, I looked over and laughed, which is when PassengerSide saw my five o’ clock shadow and glasses. He turned to DriverGuy and said, “Oh, dude. . .it’s a GUY. GO GO GO GO!” and he did that rolling motion with his index finger as he said “go go go” that made me laugh so hard I just about fell off my bike.

I was also glad, in that moment, that I wasn’t a girl riding by herself out in the middle of nowhere, because things would have likely been very different. Then again, if I was a girl who looked like I did at the time, I would have been a very scary-looking girl indeed. Hairiest legs in the world, for one thing. Scraggliest hair and biggest glasses, for another.

Sorry I’ve been so absent from blogging this week. I’ve had rehearsals almost every night, and I had a gig somewhere in there too. I should have a little more time this weekend for writing about more ‘real’ stuff than this. But in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this story.