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“Probably because he was about twelve when it aired the first time.”

“Exactly my point.”

Fletch speared another bite. “Let me ask you this—what would you do if I went all Pavlovian like you do every time you hear his name? What would you think if I was apeshit over—give me a name of some big female star today.”

“Um, Miley Cyrus?”

He grimaced. “Ugh, no. How about . . . Scarlett Johansson? What if I carried on like you do? What would happen? Listen, I know what would happen. You’d punch me.”

I nodded. Sounded pretty likely.

“And that doesn’t strike you as bullshit? Like a massive double standard?”

I sneaked the marrowbone off my plate so that Libby could lick it under the table. “It’s totally a double standard.”

“How is that acceptable?”

Huh. That really was a puzzler.

I quietly reflected while I worked it all out; then I snapped my fingers. “Got it! It’s because for every dollar a man makes, a woman typically makes seventy-seven cents. Those twenty-three disparate cents are our justification.”

He didn’t look convinced. “So what you’re telling me is that because of pay inequality, you’re allowed to ogle Channing Tatum like you’re some Teamster on a construction site?”

I replied, “Yes. Those twenty-three cents allow us to say whatever we want. That disparity is what I call The Channing Tatum Tax.”

My statement left him speechless, as he was clearly awed by my feminine logic. As well he should be.

Anyway, I eventually saw the movie and it was kind of terrible. First, there were no aliens
at all
, and second, “Get your hands
off my Jordans!” isn’t nearly as quotable as “You know what the difference is between you and me? I make this look GOOD.”

As for today, Fletch and I are on the same page, oohing and aahing at the matchy-matchy residences with their wide porches and curved windows. We idly wonder what life might have been like had we bought a home here instead of a few miles west. We slowly cruise around the neighborhood, admiring the old-growth oaks, with the radio at a respectful volume, speculating about which ranking officers lived in which units. We figure the higher the rank, the closer they’d be to the waterfront.

As we loop down Whistler Road, I spot an old woman pedaling by on a three-wheeled bicycle. I wave and she nods crisply in return. I admire her shiny rims and slow, steady path. I love how, despite her age, she moves with steely determination, which is when I notice the best part.

“Check out the basket on that thing!” I say. “I bet she could hold three bags of groceries up there!”

Suddenly I notice that Fletch has completely changed our own trajectory and we’re no longer headed toward the heart of the development.

“Are you actually turning around so we don’t see that old gal on the bike?” I ask.

“Yes.” He nods. “I don’t want you getting ideas.”

For as long as I’ve yearned for a three-wheeled bicycle, Fletch has loathed them. He was traumatized during his childhood, back when he outgrew his old tricycle and his batshit mother opted to purchase him a bigger trike instead of a regular bike like the other kids, which led to a fight of epic proportions between his parents. Fletch says the old man almost never stuck up for him, but in this one case, he actually did.

At top volume—as was his way—Daddy Fletcher explained how he did not fight the Commies in WWII and come home to
work in a coal mine only to have his only son ride around on a three-wheeler “like a goddamned Frenchman.” His boy would get a proper two-wheeled bike like every other young man in the neighborhood, save for the kid across the street who was always badgering Fletch to play “Dolly Parton” with him.

(Sidebar: Fletch eventually found his old neighbor on social media. He’s currently living in his grandmother’s basement, making his living as . . . a Dolly Parton impersonator! His page is covered in photos of him in his padded, bewigged gear, and there’s a whole section of shots taken with Dolly herself. Fletch thought this was hilarious until I pointed out that this guy’s living his childhood dream, and isn’t that kind of nice? Fletch had no choice but to agree.)

Point?

Three-wheeled bikes are Fletch’s Kryptonite. Throughout the twenty years of our relationship, we’ve had two unbreakable rules: One, I don’t buy a three-wheeled bike until he’s dead, and, two, he doesn’t hide a severed head in my toilet.

Now, I realize that in a world full of danger, where a single spider bite can kill on contact, where brutal despots annex neighboring countries without a second thought, where tainted lettuce can bring an entire cruise ship to its knees, and where constant vigilance is as necessary as oxygen, the odds of my opening the lid to the toilet, finding a severed head, and dropping dead from shock are fairly low. And yet that remains my single greatest fear, so here we are.

I’m not sure when I decided that I’d be better off rolling on three wheels, as I grew up tearing around the neighborhood on a regular ten-speed Huffy. (RIP, old banana-seated, Stingray Schwinn that I outgrew before we moved to Indiana.) I had no problem with balance or speed and I loved the freedom my bike afforded me. I lived in a subdivision about ten miles outside of town, surrounded by countryside, so I was always out exploring. To this day, I could
probably plot out all the best places to ride in my old town. Head due west to hit the Civil War–era cemetery, surrounded by the most lush, dense willow trees I’ve ever seen, which are surely now even more verdant with thirty extra years of growth. Go south to see the abandoned Girl Scout camp on the creek and relax at one of the many splintered picnic tables that I assume are still there. Travel north and I’d likely still smell the hog farm long before I ever saw it. Even now, the scent of manure and the sound of wheels crunching over gravel give me an odd feeling of comfort.

The only reason I ever stopped riding is that my juvenile delinquent neighbor decided to play chicken with me and my bike was subsequently ruined. That’s right, Across the Street Kent. I mean you. You plowed right into me because you thought it was funny and you bent my front tire in such a way that my bike became inoperable. Despite my insistence you pay for the damages or at the very least apologize, you did neither and I was never allowed to get a new bike after that because I didn’t, and I quote, “take care of the one [I] had.”

It’s been over thirty years and I’m as angry today—despite possessing a shiny pre-owned convertible—as I was back then. Possibly more so. Across the Street Kent would be wise to avoid me still, if you know what I mean.

(What I mean is, never mess with the little girl who will eventually develop an entire career due to the depth and breadth of her bitterness.)

As it turns out, a quick Google search tells me that Kent fixes driveways for a living. As I’m pretty sure that a career pouring tar wasn’t
his
childhood dream—I vaguely recall his yen to drive in a demolition derby—I feel a level of schadenfreude at this news. Is it wrong that I hope he wallows in collective misery with the bitch who used to torment me on the bus in junior high? Last I heard, she was giving manicures in a shop across from the jail and I bet that he and she . . .

Ahem.

It’s possible that holding on to resentments from 1982 is actually keeping me stuck in many ways, in which case, I shall move on.

Begrudgingly.

Returning to the topic at hand—there’s something about a three-wheeled bike that thrills me even more than Magic Mike. I didn’t even know these existed until the mid-nineties, but I loved the notion of them long before I ever set eyes on one. Back then, Fletch had graduated from college but he was still living with me at school until he found a professional job in Chicago. In the interim, he worked security at a local Isuzu manufacturer. He’d come home from the job, often complaining about having to ride this “ridiculous three-wheeled death machine” around the massive plant.

“When I’m not assigned to the front gate to check in trucks, I spend the night covering ten interior acres, chugging from vending machine to vending machine,” he said, unpacking his work bag. I was sitting on the bamboo Double Papasan couch in the living area of our dismal studio apartment. Once I graduated, this piece was the first item I junked, as it would not allow the user to sit up straight, instead turning me into what I used to call a Cup o’ Jen.

“Hold on a damn minute,” I interrupted, attempting to right myself in the chair, which caused it to go only more bowl-shaped. The cats who’d been sitting with me flew off in all directions, as though vacating a sinking ship. “There are
three-wheeled bikes
for
adults?
This is really a thing? Like with a big basket?”

“Yes, and they’re as fucked-up as a soup-sandwich,” he replied. He took off his polyester shirt and unclipped his awful fake tie, gingerly placing both items on a hanger. “I hope to God no one ever breaks into the plant because if they spot me on one, wearing this outfit with my pretend badge—”

I failed to understand his issue. “Whoa, hold it there—so you could just be tooling around all no-handed, holding a Mountain Dew in one paw and a bag of Fritos in the other, cruising up and down the empty production lines as fast as you want without any fear of tipping over? How fun is that?!”

My whole life I’ve harbored a resentment toward those who could ride no-handed. To this day, I can’t even sit on an exercise bike without clinging to the handlebars with a serious G.I.-Joe- kung-fu grip. Every time I see someone on the road, all smug and well-balanced, using their cell phone and gesturing while they talk and ride, I secretly want to bash them with my car door. It’s not fair that they can be so cavalier when some of us are so scared of getting back on a bike that we’re ignoring what is likely the easiest check on our bucket lists.

“Yeah, but less the fun. I don’t think you’re picturing how ludicrous they are—imagine a big yellow behemoth with a gigantic metal basket and white wheels and huge fenders and—”

I shifted in my tub-couch. “How many cats could you fit in the basket, would you say? Like, on average?” I immediately envisioned myself wheeling around campus, the sun at my face, the wind at my back, and my two black cats sitting up front, enjoying the breeze. Fletch’s dad was right—the whole notion seemed so very . . . European, which was a tremendous selling point in my opinion. In fact, just that day we’d been discussing
la bicicletta
in my college Italian 101 class and I felt there could be a synergy here.

The three-wheeled bike was my destiny; I was sure of it.

I immediately became enamored with the idea of using a cool bike to run the errands I’d normally do in my stupid un-air-conditioned Toyota Tercel. Hell, if I was going to ride around in a vehicle without a radio, at least I could get some exercise while doing it. This notion came on the heels of the brief period in which I believed I could accomplish the same on roller blades, like a real urban achiever. One ineffectual set of toe-brakes plus one
hill plus many tubes of bacitracin and a newfound fear of motion later, I let go of that dream. But a basket and three wheels? I’d never lose all the damn skin on my knees again!

At the time, I was still very careful to incorporate cardio into my daily life, so I was one hundred percent on board with the idea. Fun
and
fitness? Sign me up!

As I played out the scenario, I could see how the idea of transporting my cats could be an issue, but I’d been training Mr. Bones to walk on a leash and he rose to the occasion. I believed he’d be game for the bike, as would Mr. Tucker. Clearly these were more formal times in pet ownership, hence the proper names.

(Sidebar: I’d just seen
Reservoir Dogs
, so I thought I was cool by association.)

(Additional sidebar: I was mistaken.)

I envisioned us all together, zipping to the market for baguettes and wine, with me in my ballet flats and Audrey Hepburn pedal pushers and a striped boatneck shirt. I’m not sure why those items were on my fantasy shopping list, considering I was far more likely to purchase the thick, soft Wonder Bread-y goodness of Texas Toast and I drank Miller Lite almost exclusively. (I bet Mr. Tatum wouldn’t even dream about touching white bread.) Plus, I’d probably encounter some difficulty finding tiny berets for the cats to complete the look, but I was up for the challenge.

Fletch narrowed his eyes at me as he pulled off his work shoes. “That’s a . . . really specific question. Are you getting ideas? Don’t get ideas.”

“What? I’m just asking you about your day,” I mildly replied. If I wanted to visualize Messrs. Tucker and Bones hanging out in a basket up front, well, that was none of his concern. “Also, is there a place to attach a tall safety flag on the back? Like one of those fluorescent orange ones? I ask for no particular reason.”

He crossed the room to stand over me in my massive
cushioned teacup. “This is a deal breaker, you understand. I love you, but I can’t be with you if you buy a three-wheeled bike.”

“I’m not going to buy one!” I replied truthfully. Not because I didn’t want one, mind you. Largely it’s because I needed to save my money to purchase a couch that couldn’t double as a martini glass.

Fletch finally got a job in the city and moved north. I followed him later that spring when I graduated. With a new life in (the crappy suburbs of) Chicago, I had other priorities, such as carrying a better couch upstairs from where we’d found it by the Dumpster, so I put three-wheeled bikes out of my head. However, I never quite forgot about their exotic allure, especially now as I view this ideal specimen growing smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror.

Fletch observes me watching the old lady pedal away. “No. Not happening. Not now, not ever, not while I’m alive,” he says definitively as we pull out of Fort Sheridan and head for home. He takes a long pull of his iced coffee as though to punctuate his point. “A three-wheeled bike will be your reward for when I pass.”

Now, I would never have the kind of midlife crisis that would in any way disrespect my husband. I’d die before violating our most sacred marriage vows, no matter how many times Channing Tatum texted me, even if he promised to try my spaghetti.