Kids, kids and damn kids

General
1

Now that the weather is nice and I’m riding streets rather than just parking lots, I get to encounter more people, chief among them kids.

This evening I was riding up a nearby street when a herd of children ranging in age from 8 to 13 come running up to me. One of them is a former classmate of Emma’s so I started to idle to say hi. Mostly they were very excited to see a unicyclist (they’ll be bored by me soon enough). They asked the usual questions: Is that hard? How long did it take to learn? How do you balance, etc.

But, of course, there’s always one wise ass, usually a pre-pubescent girl, who has to make things difficult. This one started by asking me if she pushed me over and I fell, would it hurt? I assured her it would and, as she was on a bike, I reciprocated and asked her the same question. Silly me. Of course, it wouldn’t, replied she.

So as the other kids are enjoying my presence, she proceeds to ask THE QUESTION. “So what are you, a clown or something?” “Yes”, I reply, “I am. Don’t, I look like one?”

Then one of the kids notices my tattoo and asks if it’s real. I tell them it is, whereupon another scoffs.

Aha! Little miss blase’s dander is up. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with tattoos!”, she says. “My mom has some!”

“Good for her”, I say. “Enjoy the fine evening, kids. Later.”

And off I ride. I’ve really been missing out on some fine interactions all these years from just riding in the train station parking lot. I think it’s going to be a great summer.

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

2

And it will be an even better summer if you come to MN.

3

I wish. :frowning:

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

4

Maybe you aren’t truly obsessed.:smiley:

5

I had a coworker once who went to Chicago one long summer weekend with his wife. They went to 4 baseball games in 3 days.

You may be right.

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

6

Re: Kids, kids and damn kids

JJuggle wrote:

> But, of course, there’s always one wise ass, usually a pre-pubescent
> girl, who has to make things difficult. This one started by asking me
> if she pushed me over and I fell, would it hurt?

I just smile and say it wouldn’t hurt me. The wiseasses are usually bright
enough to pick up the subtext and sensitive enough to pick up the aura, or
whatever, and that’s that.

7

“The wiseasses are usually bright enough to pick up the subtext and sensitive enough to pick up the aura, or whatever, and that’s that.”

And if they can’t, say something like, “It would hurt both of us, because if you did, I would beat you so hard pee pee would come out of your ears, and laughter out of my mouth.”

I once got really upset at this one little girl…I was trying to learn piano, and Little Miss Attitude went up to me and said, “My sister can play better than you can.” I lost my cool, and still kind of regret it, but I replied:

“That’s nice. It’s incredible how much better she is than you at everything.”

She pouted, turned away, and ran into a corner crying. I may have scarred her life, but it felt REALLY good at the time.

Would definately not do it again, given the chance, however.

-Ramon

8

Following suit…

Our club is meeting outside in the school parking lot now that the school’s are closed for the summer. The janitors do work on the floors over the summer so we aren’t permitted to use the gyms. Meeting outside exposes us to certain visitors that I’d rather not have to deal with but unfortunately will come with the territory.

Tonight at our club meeting, two skateboarders rounded the corner of the building, plowed right through our kids and started jumping off the steps where several young kids and new riders were holding onto the railings. Our kids had to move out of the way to avoid being hit. I quickly informed the visitors that we had permission to use the facility and would they kindly mind moving around the building to the other sets of steps. Their response was quite colorful. But, I held my ground and they moved on.

Mary taught me something years ago from her expertise in child education that in situations such as these, we have an objective to obtain. As long as we can meet that objective, in this case having the kids move along, the process of achieving the objective is less important.

I have a feeling though that we’re going to have to fight these battles all summer. That’s what we get for meeting in full view of the public. We’ll just have to take them on one at a time.

Bruce

9

hopefully, when they realise that u r there for the long haul, the novelty of buzzing the kids by the stairs will wear off
we know that a majority of people’s original reactions to unicyclists are based on the ‘creepy unusualness’ and the feelings of ‘insecurity’ that it inspires

what’s the bet bruce has those two skaters at level two by the end of summer?

10

Re: Kids, kids and damn kids

razordu30 wrote:
>> “The wiseasses are usually bright enough to pick up the subtext and
>> sensitive enough to pick up the aura, or whatever, and that’s that.”
>
> And if they can’t, say something like, “It would hurt both of us,
> because if you did, I would beat you so hard pee pee would come out of
> your ears, and laughter out of my mouth.”

Ah, yes; subtlety. :wink:
>
> I once got really upset at this one little girl…I was trying to
> learn piano, and Little Miss Attitude went up to me and said, “My
> sister can play better than you can.” I lost my cool, and still kind
> of regret it, but I replied:
>
> “That’s nice. It’s incredible how much better she is than you at
> everything.”
>
> She pouted, turned away, and ran into a corner crying. I may have
> scarred her life, but it felt REALLY good at the time.
>
> Would definitely not do it again, given the chance, however.
>
> -Ramon

Nice to have another evil guy around; welcome. :wink:

–
Everybody has a plan until I hit him.
–Mike Tyson

11

Re: Kids, kids and damn kids

When asked about being pushed over, depending on my assessment of the person asking, I will mention that it’s harder for me to be knocked over than they may think. This is after years of playing unicycle sumo, so your mileage may vary. Then I have often good-naturedly offered the person a chance to try knocking me down. They never do. Their first few attempts are usually really gentle (remember, I assessed the person first), and that’s where the respect meter usually registers. Then I’ll either end it, or let them try a few more times if I can tell they won’t go psycho on me.

I usually do this with kids, not people near my own weight. They generally can’t win unless they surprise me. It’s fun, and a good learning experience for them.

With questions like “will it hurt if you fall?” I try to reference it back to everyday things. “Same as falling off a bike” for instance, or “Same as anyone else falling down.” or “I used to carry a gravity vortex around with me, but it got too expensive.” Let them figure that one out.

I got asked the clown question yesterday. No unicycles in sight. I was at the car wash, and they guy was reading my license plate and stickers. He caught me completely unprepared, and I didn’t have a quick response for him. I ended up with “No, I’m an athlete.” Like many people in this type of situation, he was genuinely interested in unicycles, and wanted to tell me about someone he had recently seen riding on the street. No harm done. My standard answer to the clown question is “No, are you?”

12

ah… observers. take the good, the bad, and the ugly. i find myself waiting for responses from people. it still surprises me when they stare straight on, as if they hadn’t just seen some madman on one wheel. fair enough, it’s berkeley; you kind of have to ignore some things.

when someone asks if it hurts when they push me over, i’m genuinely puzzled. could you actually put any more than 2 seconds of thought into that question before asking it? logically, being a few inches off the ground, it won’t. i’m really stumped by that.

when asked if i’m in the circus or have any plans of joining the circus, i usually just ask ‘are you?’ mr. blackwood, basing this only on your avatar, do people find any sort of satisfaction if/when you say yes?

13

Just out of curiousity, your location says, “los angeles, 'burbs”. Is Berkeley now a suburb of Los Angeles?

Just remember, this question is to be interpreted differently when asked by a 12 year old girl, than when asked by a rational person. <ducks>

My guess is that Mr Blackwood does this for his own satisfaction and not that of his interrogators.

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

14

perhaps i should clarify.

when i was in berkeley, that’s how they did respond.

unless la has dramatically upped their building schedule, berkeley won’t be a suburb of it for a long time. :slight_smile:

my question to mr. blackwood was not whether the people enjoyed his being a clown, just whether they enjoyed the response. if they don’t act accordingly, why bother asking the question in the first place?

15

Almost all of my uni riding and learning, except some of the off-road stuff, has been outside in public places; often with crowds of parents who are bored at their kid’s softball games, together with the little brothers and sisters. A lot of my beginner’s dues were payed during high school football games with bleachers-full of people that happened to take over my practice area. All of the Unatics rides are in public places that have lots of national and international visitors passing through. Usually our ECUC rides are in a public parking lot.

I’ve only had one or two problems, compared to oodles of respect, nice comments, and even a rider recruitment or two.

I think it’s important not to “stake a claim” to any particular territory. I can take it as a given that my attention span is far longer than any usurper’s. So I’ll get back my bench, railing, fence, stairs, or particularly-smooth section of pavement soon enough. Until then, I can easily try something else. This is also true when I have kids with me. If my objective is to ride and practice and learn, then it doesn’t really matter what territory I do it on.

Usually when an aggressive skateboarder (there are plenty of nice ones too) tries the uni he goes away with a lot more respect than when he first arrived.

I really like John’s gravity vortex response!

One of my recruitees, a boy about 11 years old, recently got his own Torker for his birthday. He learned to ride in about 2.5 hours total, and after a few more, is freemounting with both feet, doing facile turns both ways, riding on rough ground, and riding down curbs. Damn kids!

16

i took my uni along to a music festival called greenbelt last year (over 10 000) people were there, you had to dodge through them there were soo many. me and my friends had a laugh at how many times we hear “where’s the other wheel” literally between 3 and 4 times per minute!

im goin again this year, if anyone else is going let me know and we can meet up or somehting.

iain