Part 5 - "The BIG LIE is hatched!"

For the next couple of hours I sat in Jim's basement on a metal folding chair, while he rode his red Colnago on the rollers. God he made those rollers hum! And about every half hour I'd have to go upstairs to refill his Camel Back water system. I'd pour in his secret power drink, that he already had made in several large Kool-Aid pitchers, sitting in his ice box. Course this meant a few more Bud Lights would come back down the stairs with me. As I sat there and sipped on my Bud's, Jim cranked. We talked about my new bike. How good looking it was. How light it was. How beautiful the blue carbon fiber frame was. And most of all, how Cool it was. But, when I told Jim what I had paid for it, the heart monitor's alarm he was wearing, went off. And for some reason, Jim has his heart monitor tied in with all the smoke detector alarms in his house. They all started beeping at once throughout the whole house. This brought Paula, Jim's wife, frantically running down the basement stairs.

She looked a little shocked to see me sitting in my chair surrounded by a case of empty Bud Light bottles. But she looked real relieved to see Jim upright and still turning the pedals on the rollers.

"Oh God Jim!" Paula cried, "I thought you had burned out the bearings on another set of rollers! I had visions of you riding off the rollers and lying unconscious with your head stuck in the Washing machine door, again!"

"Paula, I'm fine. Don just told me a joke and that set me off."

"Well OK. But where's that helmet I bought you? Put that expensive thing back on your head! You know the House rules about riding rollers without helmets! Last time you rode off the rollers, you couldn't work for a month!"

Jim managed a feeble "Yes Dear" and asked me to get his helmet off the shelf over by his computer. What I pulled off the shelf was the first full face cycling Bell helmet I'd ever seen. God it was cool looking. It was a midnight black color and had a flexible rubber visor on the front. Paula had someone paint a set of sharp pointed shark's teeth on the wrap around Jaw protector. And on the back, she personally had painted, in bold red letters, Jim's blood type, resting heart rate, next of kin notification, his Life Insurance company's phone number, and a signed Lung Donor card.

I tossed Jim the helmet as he rode and he struggled to pull it down over his ears and stay upright on the rollers.

Paula said; "Remember Jim, You've only got another hour down here, then I'm going jogging. I think BOTH of you will have reached your limits by then."

Then she turned toward me and fired off, "Just what are YOU doing here, Don?"

"Ah.. ah.. I.. I, bought a new bike and I want.. I want Jim to look at it."

"Jim!" Paula screeched, "No New Bikes hidden in this house!"

It was then I saw the need for the new Helmet. When Paula screeched, there was an involuntary spasmodic jerky body reaction in Jim. His body subconsciously jerked up on the handlebars and he bunny hopped the Colnago off the rollers and at 30 mph, he rode head first straight into the side of their old Westinghouse Freezer. The new Bell helmet put a huge round dent in the freezer door and when Jim got up, I could see a couple of shark teeth chipped and cracked on the helmet's jaw protector.

A little stunned, Jim stuttered; "No Paula, Don's not hiding it here. He just stopped by to show me the bargain he picked up at Bike'N Bobs. He,.....He.....He just bought the best looking $600 bike I've ever seen!"

"Yea, Yea, Paula, I'm just showing Jim my new $600 bike!" I chimed in.

I had to reassure Paula the bike was really mine and it was still in my van and it would be leaving in about 5 minutes and Jim didn't violate the House rule about going into Bike'N Bob's alone or with a male friend. After several minutes of intense grilling by Paula, Jim and I were relieved when she went back upstairs to turn off the still beeping smoke detectors.

"Hey Jim, that was a great idea about the $600 bike. Tell you what, I'll go home and get the "" out of the back of the van and show it to Judith in our driveway. You come down in about 5 minutes and pretend that you were going to buy this bike at Bike'N Bob's. And then tell her it's the best looking $600 bike you've ever seen."

"Do you think that will work, Don?"

"God, Jim, It has to!"