At one point I asked him if it made things harder for him when I tell him I'm going to miss him. He said no. And then he said something along the lines of, "I'm going to miss you a ton. Don't think I won't be coming to visit you from time to time, you know how I am with rules. Don't forget about the babysitter's 10-speed bike. I can be very sneaky. Very, very sneaky!"
To which I replied, "Out the back door before those angels even know what hit them."
And then I sat and laughed to myself about that poor babysitter's 10-speed bike. Ha ha ha.
So, today I'm going to share with you a story from the hallowed halls of Ridges family folklore. A story that all in-laws have been told as a sort of "welcome to the tribe" tale. A story laughed about at family dinners and on birthdays.
When Ben and I were little we were pretty inseparable. I like to joke that I was the brains and he was the brawns behind many schemes. This is true. I don't care if Ben thinks he was part of the brains... he wasn't. He was my eager minion. (This is my blog, so anything I say on here is true and no one can argue with it!)
When we were probably like 5 and 7 we had a babysitter come to the house. The poor babysitter rode to our house on her big, nice, new 10-speed bike. (This is what we called anything that had gears and was bigger than our "starter" bikes.)
Of course, Ben and I asked if we could ride it. This was kind of a foolish inquiry seeing as neither of us could have reached the pedals. But it looked like fun.
She said NO. Flat out NO. Then she told us to go outside and play.
So we did.
On her bike.
I dared Ben to jump on her bike and ride it. (Something about forbidden fruit being that much sweeter.) He took the dare.
I can still see him on that bike. It was a behemoth compared to him. His feet couldn't reach the pedals if he sat on the seat, so he just stood up with the bike seat rubbing his shoulder blades as he chugged along. The handle bars were eye level. He shot out of the driveway and started going around in circles in our cul-de-sac. I was laughing the whole time.
It wasn't too long before the babysitter looked out the front window and saw what was going on. She came out of the house shouting for Ben to get off her bike. So he pedaled harder. She chased him in and out of driveways and around the circle before Ben finally stopped a few doors down. She hauled him back to the house, leaving her bike on the neighbor's grass.I stood by, innocently, watching.
She came back out, without Ben, and retrieved her bike. She parked it back in front of our house and went back inside without a word to me.
About the same time the front door closed, Ben came flying out of the backyard, jumped on her bike and took off down the street like a flash of lighting. I was dying laughing. The grin on his face was huge.
She came back out the front door, screaming, red-faced, puffing as she chased him down again. Back inside they went.
And you guessed it, just after she'd once again parked her bike and entered the front door, Ben came flying out the back door, jumped on her bike and rode away. He was laughing. We both were. It was hilarious!
This time when she apprehended him she was catching on and left him sitting on the front step while she parked her bike. Then she told both of us to stop stealing her bike.
"We'll just take it again." One of us said.
"Then I'll tell your mom when she gets home." She replied in righteous indignation.
"Fine, let's make a deal. If you give us some ice cream we won't take your bike again." I said.
She agreed.
So we got a sweet bike ride, some ice cream, and somehow she never told our mom.
A scheme played out like the well-oiled machine Ben and I were.
Always at the end of this story my mom says, "No wonder I had such a hard time finding babysitters!"
I have no idea what she's talking about.
Oh, Ben. I just love you. Thank you for being my partner in crime. My life was made better by having you in it!
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