Everbabe & I were reminiscing about the good old days last night.
As she & SuperMark basically furnished my house, I offered to pick up dinner on the way over. Basically to "put it on the bike," as it were. Where that expression came from is actually a pretty funny story.
Years ago, while in college, I had a friend (we'll call him Dug to protect his identity.) Dug & I seemed to be more like brothers than friends, with all the angst and stuff. I can tell you more later, if you're interested.
Anyhoo, he had brought a bike down to Tech, and decided he didn't want to take it back up to Ohio at the end of the school year. He gave me pretty good price on it (I can't remember if it was 25 or 50 dollars - still, not a bad price for a 10 speed.)
The first time that we went out to lunch after that (my guess as to where? ChinaTech,) Dug hadn't brought enough cash, so he said "Can you spot me? Put it on the bike."
And so I did, thinking to myself, "self, this isn't that bad of a deal. a little more than i was expecting, but - whateva." And we continued along our way, happy as clams.
Until ANOTHER time we went out to eat. "Put it on the bike." And again. "Put it on the bike." And *again*. "Put it on the bike." (In retrospect, it probably couldn't have happened more than 3-4 times.) But this was only the seed for the funny story. Really... it's coming... wait for it.)
It became a bone of contention between us- you've heard of the white elephant in the room no one talks about? Well, this bike grew larger than any elephant I've seen in the zoo. In normalized 2000 dollars, the bike ended up costing approximately 1.3 million lire. (J'skiddin.) But still- we had our share of arguments about it. And then we grew up.
Fast forward 6 years or so. We've graduated, and have gone out to dinner with Everbabe et al. And I didn't have exact change. And I said, "Eh, put it on the bike." And Dug jumped across the table at me throat. All things considered, it would probably win the BiggestReaction vs. SmallestProvocation Award for 1997. We eventually patched things up, and went on our way. What brought that up? I think someone must have photographed our uber-rational 'conversation.' http://www.foundmagazine.com/fotw/082204.html
Everbabe - feel free to correct any mistakes/omissions.