Flippin' Like a Pancake, Poppin' Like a Cork

Sometimes there are things you miss. When you are sitting at your desk in an overly beige cubicle, under florescent lights listening to some internet radio station or other, you long for those things that you don't have any more.

You remember a pair of brown hip hugger bell bottoms that you wore - always with the same gold button up the front shirt with the HUGE collar. You donned that same outfit every day when you could get away with it. When your mom left too early for work to catch you putting it on for a second or third day in a row. You did a lot of things in those clothes. You fought wars with the boys down the street. Riding your red, white and blue Liberty Bell bike with the kick-ass banana seat, loaded with rotten lemons you got under your neighbor's tree. You and your girlfriend would both ride on your bike - one to steer and peddle and the other to throw the lemons masquerading as hand grenades.

Once when the boys chased you down on their bikes, your friend peddled and you rode in back. You were barefoot, of course. It didn't seem like a bad idea until your heel got caught in the spokes of the back wheel of your bike. The Liberty Bell couldn't take the strain of your foot and you and your friend crashed in front of what you called the Harley house down the street. The bikers thought the boys were to blame and threatened them as they rode quickly back home. You limped home with your war injury anticipating the attention you would receive from your mom and waiting to cry until right when you saw her. Your brown hip huggers were torn and had oil from your bike smeared all over the bell part. You would miss wearing them. Your gold shirt would never really go with anything else.

Sometimes, even now you think about those things you used to have. In the afternoons when it is slow at work, you imagine how great it would be to go home at three, like you did when you were in grade school. You would ride the Liberty Bell as fast as you were able, so you could lie on your couch and watch The Banana Splits, and Spiderman and Submariner, one right after the other, until your mom came home and made you get up and put your back pack away and get ready for dinner. Sometimes those are the things you miss.