Saturday morning, cruising down to see my buddy on my Stingray. Taking the traii through the bush that comes out right across from his place. As I near the end of the trail, I see buddy's sister and her cute friends hanging out in his front yard. There's a deep, wide ditch at the end of the trail, so the trail takes an almost-90-degree bend so you can navigate across the ditch at an angle. I'd been perfecting my skidding skills, and concluded that 12-year-old girls would be pretty impressed if I skidded to a sideways stop at the lip of the ditch, a roostertail of mud arcing through the sky, me, framed majestically against the forest.

With a cry of something eloquent like, "Hey, Cindy!" I execute my skid to perfection, stopping right at the lip of the drop. I teetered for a moment, put my foot down into open space, and tumbled over into the ditch with my bike on top of me. I untangled myself from my bike, spit out a big mouthful of grass and mud, dragged my bike out of there and walked past all of them like nothing had happened. As soon as I went around the corner of the house, there was a big burst of laughter. Probably some "girl" joke.

All things considered, I think I was pretty suave.