A Little Story About a Hit Movie and My Traumatic Childhood...

It took me years to learn to ride a bike without training wheels. Why??? No, my parents weren’t evil a-holes who drank the days of my childhood away. They actually tried to teach me many times. I vividly remember my mom trying on the grass (maybe she thought it was my fear of falling on the pavement), and my dad tried a few times. The times with my dad were no better than the time (singular) when he attempted to teach me to drive in the high school parking lot. (Seriously Dad??? Who in their right mind decides that the first driving lesson should be “how to back up into a parking space”??? I mean, come on!!! I’m 25 and I still can’t do this.)

No, it wasn’t my parent’s horrible parenting skills. And, surprisingly enough, it wasn’t because my sister traumatized me, either. Why did I not learn to ride my bike without training wheels???

This guy…


More specifically when he made a movie about this guy…


That’s right. Mother F-ing ET. Steven Spielberg might have ruined my childhood. I saw that messed up movie when I was very young. I can’t tell you the plot, character names, nothing, but I remember that horrible scene when that little kid flies away in his bike with the little brown turd in the basket. OMG that scared me!!! I don’t remember how the bike started flying, but it did. And if I couldn’t remember how it started, what if I accidentally did that one action or flipped that “start fling now” switch on my bike without knowing it??? There was no way in Hell I was going to risk it. Therefore, I was destined to either never ride a bike (which really isn’t an option growing up in suburbia) or just never learning to ride without my training wheels. (Because in my head if I still had the training wheels I was safe. They were like suction cups that wouldn’t let my bike fly into outer space for no reason except to scare the crap out of me.)

The teasing and name calling came first from my older sister. She learned to ride her bike without training wheels in a weekend. (Yeah… she was that kid.) Sister decided that she wanted to surprise our father when he got back from his TDY (for you non-military people “his business trip”). So she got mom to teach her and help her… blah, blah, perfect child, blah. Dad came home, Sister triumphantly rode up and down our street, Dad cried out of pure joy and amazement… Isn’t his oldest child wonderful… (Okay maybe he didn’t cry, but you get the idea.)

Kindergarten is when it started for me. Evidently my mother subscribed to the parenting method of, “if it worked on one kid, it will work on her terrified little sister.”

“Little Lemon, Dad is going to be gone for a week. Why don’t you and I work on your biking skills…?”
“Oh, another TDY for Dad. Lemon, bring me your bike and I can help you get over your handicap…”
“Dad’s out for three day. SIT ON THIS MOTHER F-ING BIKE AND PEDDLE UNTIL I SAY STOP!!!! No, sweetheart I promise I won’t let go…”
Seriously, every time my dad stepped out of the house mom was pushing that damn bike on me like meth on a redneck from Missouri. But, I wouldn’t budge. There was no way I was going to risk my neck because of my renegade bike and not knowing where to locate, or how to turn off, the flying button.


Eventually one morning (I think I was in second grade or so) I woke up and decided I was being silly. I had never seen my sister fly away. Nor, had I seen any of the neighborhood kids, and we lived in England now so maybe bikes couldn’t fly in England. There must be some chemical in the sky, or maybe the Queen made a law, but I was pretty sure there could be no flying bikes in England.

I can’t remember where we were going, but it was early one morning and we were in nice clothes. I finished my breakfast. My mother was probably doing five things at once, so when I told her I was going to go ride my bike she didn’t look up or acknowledge me. The training wheels were already off my bike, from countless times my parents had tried to teach me. I wheeled the bike to the end of our short drive way, mounted the seat, put my foot to the peddles and rode off. I peddled to the end of the street slowly because I couldn’t figure out if it was safe to turn around on the bike or if I should get off and pick it up to face back the way I came. I’m a Bad Ass, so of course I turned all by myself. As I approached my house coming back my parents were standing outside. Both looked confused…

Looking back now even I confuse myself. ET scarred me for life. Because of one scene it took me years to ride a bike, but I love Jaws and I’m not scared of swimming in the ocean. Also, he directed Jurassic Park and I still have dinosaur nightmares…