Bike Crash

The sun was out and the trees chattered as a warm breeze tickled my face. Wrapped in a light blue, the sky was spotted with wispy clouds. It was early and I had just stepped out of Smith Hall to a wondrous Friday morning. I must admit I was proud of myself for making it to class on this particular morning. I had an open weekend with almost nothing on my schedule. Things couldn’t get much better, so you can imagine my surprise when my harmonious morning took an unexpected and quite humorous turn.

I was with a friend, Alex. We began rattling off breakfast spots as we walked towards the parking lot. Not that it matters, but we settled on Yogi’s. Almost to my car, Alex yelled out to a friend of ours that was walking across the street. A female student whizzed by him on a bicycle just as he shouted. Thinking that Alex was trying to get her attention, she turned her head around to see what he wanted. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, or less perfect. She couldn’t have taken her eyes off the sidewalk for more than a millisecond before slamming into a trashcan. Her bike came to a complete halt upon impact, sending her flying over the handlebars. It was surprisingly gracefully for a crash, I must admit. Within a few seconds Alex and I had made our way over to her. By this time she was already picking herself up. Luckily, she wasn’t injured seriously injured. A scrape on her wrist and a bruised ego, nothing some Neosporin couldn’t take care of. On the way back to my car (and safely out of view), Alex and I burst with laughter. My legs buckled under me as I replayed the scene in my head. In fact, can’t help but chuckle as I write this post. Also, I find it amusing that I will remember her crash as one of the funniest things I've seen, whereas she will remember it as deathly embarrassing. 

Morreall should consider using this as an example in his next edition of Comic Relief. Relief theory and superiority theory are on display here. I was able to laugh only after ensuring that the biker wasn’t injured. My feelings of freight, which turned out to be unnecessary when I discovered that she was not injured, turned to laughter. If she had been injured, my feelings of freight might have turned to panic, but they certainly wouldn't have been manifested as laughter. This scenario also displays the superiority theory, as I was laughing at the fact that someone else crashed their bike in public. It's always easier to laugh at other's misfortunes than it is to laugh at our own. I hadn't stopped to think about 'why' I found this particular event humorous until now. It's interesting to apply the theories that I have learned in class to real-world experiences.