Last weekend's incident = this week's pain

So last Friday, I was asked by a youth in the church choir to be his Confirmation Sponsor. Nice guy, Jeff. Afterwards, we're going out to get a bite to eat, and a totally unconnected teen girl driver decides that some totally unconnected teen guys in a truck in front of us are cute. What else does a teen girl do when she sees some guys in a truck and thinks that they are cute? That's right, get in front of them and perform a brake check. Twice. We passed the first one but not the second. So now the "nice" van is in the shop. It should cost us about $1900 or so to fix. Paint will have to wait for another paycheck or two. So, in order to sustain family harmony, my wife and five children are using the "not-so-nice" van and I use my bicycle. It's only about 12 miles each way, but in my '92 Astro that's close to five bucks in gas a day. I was leaning towards doing this for a while this summer anyway, to get in some more miles. So I pedal, and I ache, and when the wind is just right and I'm on the downward side of the hill, I fly.