Update: Results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

This is the fifth offering overall and the first for March. To see how February ended up see the extended entry of Shamming/Sharing (#4).

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

Memories are odd things. Sometimes you have perfect recollection of important things in your life, and other times you can't remember these critical times worth a damn. The same thing happens with seemingly innocuous items. Why do I remember that my little brother peed on my step-sister's carpet when we went up to Chicago for her wedding? Why do I remember that years before that we all lived in Chicago but I remember so little of that time?

One of the few things I remember was a chopper pedal bike. You know what a pedal car is, right? It's got those idiotic pedals that you keep pushing forward 2 inches, instead of pedals on a rotor (like on a bike). This was a metal tricycle that used pedal car style propulsion and had a chopper style front wheel - looooong front fork and little wheel. It sucked because it was a pedal car and was useless on any kind of incline (couldn't pedal uphill and going downhill you just went with the flow - putting your feet on the pedals was a recipe for a mauling) and you couldn't race against anybody else or even keep up with anybody else. A BigWheel toasted my chopper. Any kind of normal tricycle toasted it. I was the slowest thing in the apartment complex.

But it was also freaking cool. It was a chopper! What could be cooler than having a chopper when you're a little kid (especially in the mid 70's). Nobody had anything like my bike. Not even close. When I was on that thing (disdaining racing and the keeping up with others, of course) I was the King. I loved that chopper.

One day I went to ride it and it wasn't there. I don't remember the particulars of how it was stolen. I probably left it out but for the sake of my young pride we'll say that somebody else forgot to lock the storage area. Whatever the method, my chopper was gone. I was devastated. I wouldn't be special anymore. My unique bike, my ultra-cool chopper that nobody except me in my entire known world had was gone. No, not just gone, it was being abused by somebody else!

This was the first total meltdown in my memory. In fact, except for deaths it's the only one I can think of at all at the moment. My older brother took pity on me and went everywhere looking for it. He eventually found it in a dumpster. Whoever had stolen it had smashed it up pretty good. I remember him taking me outside to see it and saying that maybe we could fix it. I remember that I stopped crying and just felt nothing at all. The frame was totally mangled. It was busted. Gone. Useless. Over.

We tossed it in our dumpster and went back in the house. Mom tried to cheer me up and even older bro was uncharacteristically attentive but I stayed in a funk for days. Eventually I got out of my depression and went back to being a little kid but even to this day I can remember that chopper and the feelings of hopelessness and despair I had when i saw it all busted up.

This was the truth. I really had a messed up pedal car chopper bike that I had a serious love/hate relationship with and the events of the story accurately describe its demise. Shortly after the loss of the chopper my mom got me The Big Green Machine. Or was it The Mean Green Machine? Whatever it was called it was green and shaped like a big wheel but you steered with levers that moved the rear axle. It was awesome. It was so easy to do spin outs on that thing. I quickly got over the chopper when that appeared.

jim, Simon, Helen and Mike got it right. Another 4 of 8 performance! A new sham/share will be out later today.