Random reminder

Press, 21 May 1982, Page 18

Random reminder

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

There is a housewife in a MidCanterbury town who. one day in the summer holidays bowed to pressure from her son, to buy him a pair of blue jeans. She hasn't any objection to jeans you understand, only the price, and the frequency with which they have to be replaced due to son's rapid growth, and his active life. This Mother is a coward, she doesn't drive a car, and rather than give any Driving Instructor a heart attack trying to teach her, and any Traffic Officer the pleasure of failing her in the driving test, she has always cycled everywhere. So this fine day she and her son pedalled their way into town, and placed their bicycles in the stand thoughtfully provided by the local Borough Council. The jeans duly purchased, they returned to the stand and prepared for the ride home. Son got his bicycle out of the stand, Mother reached for hers, lifted it out, that is she lifted out the frame of the bicycle, leaving the front wheel firmly wedged in the space provided for front wheels. Son, stood back and laughed at Mother's embarrassed face, then ever practical he left her for the nearest hardware store, where he borrowed a screwdriver. The shop assistants, he told her later, laughed in glee as they handed over the said implement. Meanwhile Mother was eyeing the passing population as they wended their innocent way along the main street. Must have been children, she thought,

she had heard of children letting down bicycle tyres, her daughter had been a victim of such a prank a few years ago. So now they had progressed to unscrewing front wheels of bicycles. She contemplated a marvellous punishment, should she ever catch the culprit/culprits. Relating the story to her ever loving spouse at lunchtime, who at first looked sympathetic, but just couldn't keep a straight face. He started to laugh. Mother looking affronted, said, didn’t he realise what a narrow escape she had had? The bicycle could have collapsed as she cycled down the street, she could have been lying under the wheels of some passing tourist bus, her imagination working overtime, she would have gone on. but for the gales of laughter from her unsympathetic family. Spouse explained. The day before during the lunch hour, he had'replaced her old tyre and tube with a new one (at great expense to his pocket he hastened to tell her) and in his hurry had forgotten to tighten the nuts and bolts on the front wheel. Its alright, he told her, your weight and pressure on the wheel would have kept the wheel from falling off. nothing serious would have happened.

Mother is now on a diet, the remark about the weight rankled. She isn't going to pay for the new tyre and tube. Spouse still laughs as he relates the story to his cronies over a jug of beer on Saturday. Mother is biding her time, revenge is sweet — so they sav.