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Lines form on my face and my hands
Lines form on the left and right
I'm in the middle, the middle of life
I'm a boy and I'm a man

I'm eighteen and I like it

I have not, however, realized that I'm no longer 18. When I was 18, I bounced when I fell over. Nothing mattered and nothing's fragile. Unfortunately at 53, things start to hurt and ache a little more. Saturday evening, my wrist started to ache. Quite badly. Later, the right side of my neck went crazy stiff and then all the muscles across my right shoulder and down my right arm started to ache. What had caused this, I hear you say? Was it the three and a half hours spent fitting the tonneau cover on the truck? The cover that came with easy and simple 15 minute instructions. I think it took 15 minutes to figure out what we were supposed to do and then it got worse having to wrench things in place and having to file down the brackets that didn't fit and then needing a hammer to get them in place. The cover is now on, but it ain't coming off again. Actually, it will, but the brackets will be kind of hard to get off. Anyway, no, that wasn't the cause of my pain.

Having taken longer than expected to fit the cover, I decided not go to go out on Saturday. The plan was to take the scooter out to another of my old birding sites. As it was later and traffic builds up, we decided to do that on Sunday and leave earlier. Now, the scooter goes 12 mph which is not as fast as someone can sprint, but it would be hard for someone to hold up that pace when running for a long while. William decided to race me across the garage which was kind of fun. The only thing to note is that the brakes aren't great, but no incidents. Now, when I got out of the elevator, I thought it would be fun to race back to the apartment which is essentially down one corridor, then round the corner and down another corner. That corner is sort of two 45 degree turns versus on 90 degree turn - just the configuration of the building. I figured I could make the corner at 12 mph. I know the scooter isn't very stable, but I thought if I leaned, I could take the racing line and all would be well. Problem #1 came as I got closer to the corner and realized that if I leaned and took the racing line, I would have cracked my skull on the inside wall. So I didn't lean into the corner. Yeah, so as I turned the corner, the scooter tipped over and I didn't have the ability to brake. Now, here's where I wish William was videoing it as neither of us know how I actually made the corner. What I did was punched out at the wall I was heading into, hitting it with the palm of my hand, narrowly missing someone's door. That dropped me back onto all four wheels, but then it tipped again, so I repeated the process and somehow got round the corner without crashing. No idea if anyone was in either of the apartments, but nobody came out to see what was going on. There was definitely a dog in one of them as it wasn't best pleased with the loud bangs. I'm actually surprised I didn't punch through the wall. I guess the outer walls of the apartments are stronger than I thought.

Nothing hurt at the time. It wasn't until later in the evening that it started to take effect. I'm sure your thinking that was stupid. Maybe, but you've got to try these things. What was more stupid was trying it again the following day after we'd been out. Now, in fairness, I only hit the corner in second gear, so 7.5 mph instead of 12 mph. I also took the wet weather line rather than the racing line which allowed me to start wide and gave me room to lean in without cracking my skull on the inside wall. William did shout at me that I was an idiot and that I wouldn't make it, but he was wrong. I did make it. Huh! Today's generation too worried about things. Sometimes you just gotta try it out, even if you're an old fart.