So what happens when your feet stop running? In general...do you just have to hope you're in a good enough spot to stay there? Do your legs get trampled by your own momentum, therby veering you off the road? Could you cramp up and just charlie horse that bitch off the road? Smash into something or total the piece altogether? Or like- what if Barney got hammered and sprained his ankle and couldnt passenger-sprint? Like, does Pebbles have to step up? I dunno, it just seems to me that that cartoon is full of shit. If there are giant dinosaurs flying around, it just seems like you'd obviously fly. And there were those huge brontosauruses at work that they slid down after clocking out, that helped to enhance boulder-shifting and slate rock'ing productivity-- and even if they were "trained"... but if they were "herbivores," then they should have "used them to get around." And still, even though I get that it's a form of exercise, the whole running in full sprint to make a car go that is made out of ROCKS and wood seems about impossible unless you're Magnus or whatever. Those stones look heavy as shit. Just being able to turn them one rotation alone seems like a lie, a lie placed to run children straight into slander-swaddled naps, leaving 60's moms more free to smile randomly for no reason, high on monochromatic pills and oven gas, or maybe to get ready to coat the sink in comet, slam vodka, sew on some boy scout patches, or whatever they did when the kids didn't distract them. No matter what, I just know that shit is FALSE. No way you can just run until you don't, especially when you have momentum, which happens more than anyone would like to admit.
Maybe I just know from experience. For awhile my brakes didn't work on my bike and I was still chillin around on it like that was cool because ...I guess I thought it was? Like if I just paid close enough attention to traffic and wore closed toed shoes it would be fine. Well...those closed-toed shoes turned into ripped-open-toe Vans from dragging my feet so hard on the concrete. Once I almost smashed into a Cadillac that slow-rolled a stop sign, full-force. The driver slammed on his brakes when he saw me and was like...holding up his hand, as if to tell me to stop...and I was trying, but I just ...couldn't. I was sprinting and shuffling my feet to try to slow down as he approached, dragging my toes as I just coasted through the intersection, as if I didn't care. The guy looked super pissed- like- "who do you think you are? Fred Flintstone?" I would have turned back around to apologize but I was pretty far away by then. He definitely gave me the death eyes though, as i soared past...which I suppose are better than death-crash-into-my-body-with-vehicle-eyes. Either way, I saved up and got my brakes fixed on my next paycheck...and even though I ate beans for like, all my meals that week, it was worth it to save my life, and my toes. I just hope somewhere, there's a probably-rich, Cadillac-owning black man writing a blog about a dumbass white chick in overalls who thought she was too good to stop at a stop sign.
Since the big fix, I have since quit Flinstone'ing it...with my feet on my bike at least, and the rest of the time, I try to catch it before it's too late. Because, well... isn't Flinstone'ing it some kind of Carrie-Bradshaw-trapeze-y, generally existential, metaphor for life? Where we all just push until we can't, and sometimes field some dirty looks along the way? But most importantly, it's that we need to know when to stop so that our momentum doesn't send us crashing right into dry-hangover-heaving hard enough to piss your pants at your nine-to-five. And while we can't just fix our brakes in real life, we can acknowledge our needs and adjust our actions....and just slow down. Even if the cost is high upfront, it is probably the reward we're seeking anyway, right? It's really just one of life's many lessons on knowing when to fold 'em, knowing when to walk away I guess.
