The other day I was walking down the street through the chilly January air when I spied a man approaching on a bicycle. As he drew close enough for me to make out his features, I realized that he was the spitting image of Saddam Hussein, in a red bike helmet. My first thought was “Wait, that can’t be Saddam Hussein–he’s dead!” As though otherwise, it could well have been him, riding down Liberty on a grey Schwinn. (Actually, I hear his specialty was running down liberty.) Then it occurred to me what an unexpected sort of divine punishment it would be to force a dictator to ride a bicycle all the way to hell. But if such a thing were to happen, would he be likely to ride through Ann Arbor? What would that suggest about his destination… Kalamazoo? Maybe it’s a winding route, and he’s really headed for Houston. Or Phoenix. Hard to say…
The bike ride from to hell
Responses
Hi Gregory! Erin from VA and the way back machine again. Glad to see you writing again.
Your story reminds me of a coworker of mine who as a grad student spent a summer in Venice counting gondolas. (Don’t ask–some weird international engineering project that got him a trip to Italy). We have a picture of him sitting on one of the bridges with a loaf of bread and Nutella smiling through the full black beard that he had at the time. We posted it at work as a Wanted Dead or Alive poster and actually convinced a coworker that it was a picture of Osama Bin Laden in his youth. I wonder if Osama likes Nutella.
By: Erin on January 27th, 2007
at 9:04 pm
Hi, Erin,
Great–thanks to you, I now have both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden on the same page; what kind of trouble am I going to get in with the government? Actually, you might be the one to know…
Anyway, I don’t know if Bin Laden likes Nutella or not (which puts me in the large majority, without doubt), but he certainly seems to be a nutcase, if not a hazelnutcase. I suppose you could have supported your hoax by fabricating a photo of a big bin filled with jars of Nutella, prompting comments like “Oh, Some Bin Laden With Nutella.” But on second thought, it doesn’t seem like it would fool anybody. Never mind.
By: Gregory on January 27th, 2007
at 9:21 pm