The porcupine effect
When I was learning to ride my first motorbike, I would practice in the shipping area of a tire-recapping plant near my home. There was a loading dock at chest level with wooden buffers that trucks would back against to save the paintwork on their bumpers. Needless to say, the buffers were totally splintered and in rather rough condition.

Cue me, describing lazy circles on the tarmac, coming a little bit closer to the buffers on each loop until I saw that I was coming too close, totally forgot where the brakes were, and shunted the bike into the wall below the dock. My chest came into contact with a buffer, and the bike and I went down on the pavement.

Stood up to inspect the damage. My white t-shirt was a mass of wooden splinters and blood. I removed as many splinters as possible before pushing the bike home, and confronting my mother in the living room with a cheery "Hi Ma, do we have any tweezers?"

She immediately told me that I was getting rid of the bike. Of course I didn't, and got into much more imaginative situations with bikes later. And the odd splinter finds its way to the surface every now and then some 35 years later.

Sorry for the length, but I'm old, and nobody listens to me.
(Just a stub, Mon 7 Feb 2005, 20:07, Reply)