True Love is Black Duct Tape

Last Friday I was in a huge rush to make it to our neighborhood Bible Study on time.

I'd rushed home from my tennis match (which I lost, leaving me in a bit of a blue funk to start with) with no time to shower. I spashed on some fruity-smelling body wash over my sweaty tennis clothes, dabbed a little make-up over my newly sprouted sun-induced freckles, threw my purse, Bible, and study book into my bicycle handlebar basket (yes, yes - I have a basket like the Wicked Witch of the West) and careened down the sloped driveway already ten minutes late.

As my front tire hit the gutter at the base of my driveway, the flimsy gizmo connecting the basket to the bike popped off, flinging my purse out and spewing the contents all over the road directly in front of my tires. As I ran over my new leather Coach purse (the only one I've ever owned, which now sports a tire tread down the center), I heard tubes of lipstick crack and all my other essential items of life spread out through the cul-de-sac like a rock slide.

Miraculously, I didn't crash, but the sudden stop caused by sticking my legs out catapulted my Bible onto the asphalt. It ended up spread-eagled upside down, flying bookmarks and ripped pages flapping in the breeze.

With none of the grace of my inbred Southern heritage, I heaved that aggrevious basket as far as I could into the bushes and left the stupid bicycle lying prostate in the gutter. I think I even kicked it.

I hope somebody steals it, I thought, angrily stuffing my broken stuff back into my poor violated handbag. Or maybe the garbage men will pick it up. I never want to see it again. I climbed into my car and tore off, a living testimonial to Christianity at it's finest.

By the time I arrived back home from the Bible Study, I was in a better frame of mind. I didn't even notice that the metalic offender was gone. In fact, I never gave that bike or basket another thought until the following day when, having forgotten all about my vows to forsake two-wheeled transportation forever, I entered the storage room to hop aboard for my regular 5-mile weekend bike route.

I was already astraddle before realizing the basket was somehow back in place and the tires had been reinflated. Now how did that happen? Are there bicycle fairies flitting about?

Glancing down, I had to smile at the black duct tape winding round and round the handlebars securing the basket in place until you-kn0w-where freezes over. Awww... my eyes teared up.

Apparently my husband Chuck had witnessed my Lance Armstrong fiasco through his office window and without saying a word, had gathered up my shattered Humpty Dumpty and painstakingly put all the pieces together again.

Now that's true love with a sticky back.