One Bill After Another

Excerpt from the short story: "Who Was That On The Donald Duck Bicycle?"

   Unknown to me, strange forces and weird coincidences were in the wind. That Christmas all four of the children in the family got bicycles. Three of the bicycles were ordinary, but the fourth was a Donald Duck bicycle.

   The first thing that would make one laugh hysterically upon seeing the Donald Duck bicycle was that it had two big orange tires. Attached to them was a shiny dark-blue frame with Donald Duck’s orange face and blue cap plastered on the front of the bicycle. Sticking out of the ends of the white rubber handlebar grips were purple and white tassels that would flutter wildly like a flapping duck’s wings when the bicycle was moving. This was topped off with a horn attached to the handlebar that quacked like Donald Duck.

   Luckily for me, the Donald Duck bicycle was for my older sister Brunhilda. Anytime that I would see the bicycle I laughed until it almost made me sick. One morning the following spring when I was walking past our garage on the way to school, all my laughing at the bicycle ended. The garage door opened and out zoomed my mother peddling the Donald Duck bicycle telling me to get on the back or else.

   People love to ride cartoon characters at Disneyland; however, nothing has been more embarrassing to me than having to ride to school on a Donald Duck bicycle. If that weren’t enough embarrassment for me, when school got out my mother was waiting outside for me on that bicycle. After that, I swore I would never watch the Walt Disney show or any cartoons on television.

  After going back and forth to school on that bicycle for a month and having my school friends laugh at me, I finally came up with a plan. The following Monday morning I still had to ride on the Donald Duck bicycle; however, when we got two blocks from school, I asked my mother to drop me off one block before we got there. When the bicycle stopped, my mother looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “I’m more than happy to drop you off and pick you up one block from school so your school friends won’t laugh at you. I’ll also do it because I love you very much.”