On The Pegs September 2019 - Volume 4 - Issue 9 | Page 52

On The Pegs
52
I checked to make sure most of the critical parts were still attached. When I con-
firmed everything was there and the bike was in ridable condition, I rubbed the
slightly bent side shroud and said lovingly “You were so good.” On a related note,
is there a special hotline you can call if you suspect you are gaslighting your bike?
Asking for a friend. Speaking of hotlines, sometimes I’m worried my bike is going
to call one of the hotlines for help leaving abusive relationships.
As a result of not having anyone to yell at, I always had to bottle up the emo-
tions inside, and would resort to sulking. Sulking was actually a specialty of mine
for a number of years. The best (or worst) sulk I ever had wasn’t due to a bike
failure at all though, but was instead caused by a spectacularly bad main event at
the Las Vegas EnduroCross when I was a teenager. Exactly what happened in the
race has long since been lost in the fog of too many concussions, but boy do I re-
member that sulk! We raced on a Friday and had to drive to Louisiana for a NEPG
that was taking place on Sunday. For reasons that would be too complicated to
get into right now, we had too many people and not enough seats, so I was stuck
on the floor for the entirety of 22-hour drive. I crawled up under the backseat of
our cargo van and didn’t come out until we hit Dallas.
I think I’ve begun to outgrow sulking though. Nowadays I tend to just stick with
wallowing. To an untrained outsider, the two look very familiar, as both involve
complete silence and a unpleasant expression. The key difference is that the
sulker primarily experiences a larger proportion of anger than sadness and dis-
appointment, as they have immaturely expected to get something better which
they believe they deserved. On the other hand, the wallower experiences more
sadness than anger, and has recognized that they got exactly what they should
have expected all along.
The psychologists say that the ideal emotion to experience after disappoint-
ment is acceptance, which is recognizing what happened, accepting it, and mov-
ing forward from it. However, what the psychologists usually neglect to mention
is that having a family member say “Why can’t you just get over the race already!”
is far more likely to provoke yelling, sulking or wallowing than it is to spontane-
ously cause acceptance. Personally, I think being asked to get over a race on the
following Wednesday is entirely too soon, which is why I plan to call my senator
after my next disaster and ask for an extension to the statute of limitations on
post-race sulking. My editor, Shan Moore, has agreed to tack a copy of my petition
to the end of this column (right Shan?). If all supporters would please mail your
neatly filled out form with signature attached to the world headquarters of SADD
before my next bad race, it would be greatly appreciated. n