Sometimes I forget how most people are still beyond understanding the unicycle, then I get a rude awakening…
After months of riding the one-wheel, I’m still not so hot, but I am definetly past level1 enough to make unicycling a normal part of my life whenever I can. Everyone who knows me is used to the idea, and so in my building, most of my neighbors see me as “that Unicycle guy” (and now my daughter as “that unicycle girl”) Usually, when riding on the street, the vast, vast majority of people smile and say something silly, but for the most part, it is never nasty.
Well, the other day, my wife and I were having dinner at a friends house, and I got into a conversation with a couple about, well, I forget. Anyway, I just casually mentioned that “there was a pretty good unicycling scene up at grant’s tomb about twice a month” when the fellow I was talking to burst out–
“What?!” he bellowed with uproarious laughter. “A unicycling scene??? What are you talking about!!!”
When I tried to explain that I rode the unicycle, and that about twice a monththere are meetings of unicyclists who meet at grant’s tomb (in NYC) he nearly fell over laughing. I seriously thought the guy was going to have a heart attack.
“That’s insane!” he screeched “The unicycle! What are you, on drugs?”
His wife was not much better–she looked at me with this terribly condescending expression, making dumb comments like “maybe you can make some extra money as a part time clown”–that sort of thing. But what annoyed me most was that anytime I good naturedly tried to explain how the unicycle is in fact more fun and healthier than a bike, she just gave me that dumb look an annoyed parent gives a naughty child while saying “oh, I see,” then nodding her head and saying “Oh-Kaaaay…” (you know what I mean, like she’s so sane and I wasn’t)
Eventually, her giggling husband calmed down, but he kept bringing the subject up again, like I was some kind of rare specimen from another century. I refused to let the whole thing get me down, but it was a real bummer. I offered to show this couple my muni, just so they might understand that modern unicycling has been out of the circus for quite some time, but my mere description of mountain unicycling drove them both into a laughing frenzy “What???People ride unicycles on DIRT TRAILS? That’s soooooo sick!”
There was no winning, so I let them have their say, resigned to remember that some people are just idiots, and most people have not the faintest clue as to what is possible on the one-wheel.
And just when it seemed that the whole world was into unicycles!!
Steve
)
) … you’ve had the ‘20/20 hindsite’ about a better rebuttle. But, give it a rest… better to ‘humor them’ than them to humor you.
.
(but reasonably so–this is not a horror website, except of course when pedal leg wounds are posted…)
Yes sir! I’ll do as you say out of unicycle solidarity…