I Want To Ride My Bicycle

When I was in middle school, I had Pokemon: Blue (and later I got Yellow, too). One of the annoying features of this game- and of many RPGs- was that it took a really obnoxiously long time to walk anywhere. First of all, you progress at this painfully slow pace. And when you have to go back and forth to various places in order to heal pokemon, get items, save your game, etc, you start to develop a recurring desire to hurl your Game Boy through a wall.

In Pokemon, though, you eventually get a bicycle, which speeds everything up considerably. The game gets fun again, because you don't have to waste so much damn time.

Now, having lived in Oberlin and in College Park where everything is built sprawled out and far apart, I think I'm starting to realize how true-to-life that game was. I don't really want to live in a city again, but I don't want to live outside one without a bike, either.

The other good thing about biking is that you get to wear spandex and buy expensive equipment and go really fast. And this is seen as legitimate eco-friendly form of exercise, so society even commends you for spending large amounts of money to play superhero and act like a little kid.