“You’ll give me a what?!” were my first words when Mr. Brit offered to “Give me a backie” the other night.
The situation was pretty self-explanatory: we were standing outside of my apartment, ready to go to his apartment in the quickest way possible, and I had a bike. Of course the easiest solution was to both ride the bike — if it wasn’t for the fact that as soon as he suggested “a backie,” I started studying every inch of his facial traits to judge, from his expression, if maybe he had other (dirty, by the sound of it) plans in mind I wasn’t aware of.
Once clarified the issue, I was ready to jump on the bike and figure out logistics.
The only problem is that “a backie” apparently consists in a way of riding the bike where one person is sitting comfortably on the bike seat, holding on to the other person’s hips, while the latter stands on the pedals and, in what seemed to be a huge physical effort, carries both passengers.
So, now: in my world, and in my country, when a lady is given a bike ride by a gentleman on his bike, she usually sits either on the bike rod, cutely nestled in between the strong and protective arms of said gentleman, or she sits on top of the handle bar, holding on to the gentleman’s shoulders.
Mr. Brit was perplexed.
“If you sit on the handle bar I won’t see where I’m going” replied with a frown.
“You will just have to tilt your head a bit.”
“And your bum will get very sore if you sit on the rod.”
“Pfff, don’t be ridiculous. I’ve done this plenty of times.”
But there was nothing I could say or do: he wanted to give me a backie. And that’s what he did.
I have to admit that my first backie experience was a pleasant one: with absolutely no effort on my part, I was carried from point A to point B in quite a safe manner, and comfortably as well. Maybe I looked more like a 2 year old on a field trip than a very respectable lady riding a bike with her partner — but that didn’t really matter: every person we crossed seemed so surprised we thought maybe they’d hadn’t seen two people on a bike in their entire life!
Well. Then again. Let’s face it. We are in New York. They probably haven’t.
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