There are posts that make their way onto this blog because of their “universal” interest and stories that show up here simply because I don’t want to forget them. This is one of the later and, like most enduring tales, it’s worth remembering because it involves Jason behaving like an idiot. And yes, I do plan on repeating this account as often as possible until the day I die, maybe even longer.

Jason is a very intelligent man. His brilliance is one of the many things I love about him. That said, being brilliant doesn’t always mean that you’re terribly smart. Allow an evening at Lambert Park to illustrate my point.

It all started on a delightful Friday. Temperatures were ideal, courtesy of spring, so we decided to go mountain biking at Lambert Park, one of our favorite spots for this activity due to its proximity and utter awesomeness.

Lambert Park was striking that day. Purple, crimson, white, and yellow wildflowers dotted the landscape and lush grasses flaunted their greenest hues. The trails, as they wound through tightly-packed oak brush, were just the right combination of tricky and tempting, as always. It was the perfect setup for the perfect evening until…

At one point, I noticed that Jason had opened his bike seat pouch and that he, for unknown reasons, didn’t seem to be in any hurry to close it. I, in my boundless wisdom, suggested that he should zip it up or he was going to lose something. Pretty exceptional advice, right? After we had spent the rest of the daylight cruising Lambert’s dusty paths and had returned to our car, we discovered that my cell phone had fallen out of Jason’s pack somewhere in our travels because he hadn’t heeded my excellent guidance. Drat! Sometimes correctness is a curse.

Since twilight was rapidly approaching, it was decided that Jason would ride back the way we had come on his bike and search for my missing phone while I would take our car on an intersecting dirt road and meet up with him. This would cut out the uphill part of his retracing. Jason, keen to redeem himself, sped off in such a hurry that he forgot his helmet, forcing me to chase after him. Once he had his safety gear properly in place and was again on his way, I drove down a gravel track to unite with him as planned. Unfortunately, when I got to our rendezvous point, I found that not only had Jason had no luck locating my phone but a whizzing sound was coming from one of our tires. Yes, in keeping with the general misfortune of the evening, I had run over a nail on that primitive lane and air was leaving the puncture in an awful hurry.

Because Jason was still looking for my mobile and needed to complete his hunt before it got dark, which it already nearly was, I was stuck holding my finger over the tire’s gap in a pathetic attempt to discourage deflation as he continued to rummage. My efforts didn’t seem to be too productive yet I took comfort in the fact that we had all sorts of emergency gear in our hatchback: a pump, gauge, and Fix-A-Flat for starters. Something was bound to work for this particular predicament. That’s about when a nagging recollection surfaced in my mind. Somewhere in my recent memory, I saw Jason removing our emergency kit in order to fit our bikes in our car easier but, no matter how much I prodded, my memory couldn’t conjure up an image of him returning that gear. A quick check, for which I had to take a momentary recess from my fingering, proved that my disheartening hunch was correct. Our emergency kit was hanging out, rather uselessly, back home in our garage because Jason had decided it wasn’t necessary for this specific venture. Holy Hanna! Warning: Attempting appropriate amounts of eye rolling at this juncture without warming up your eyeballs first may result in optic strain.

Jason had been calling my phone in hopes of hearing it ring as he biked along. Although he had had no luck in that regard, after nearly a dozen calls, unexpectedly, someone answered. A couple of bikers had found my mobile and had taken it with them assuming that they’d be able to locate its owner. They had already left Lambert Park but were happy to meet up with us at a gas station to hand over my Blackberry. Great news! Except…our tire only made it to the terminus of that dirt road before it went too flat to travel any further.

By this time it was completely dark but at least, even without all our convenient crisis gear that was back home instead of in the back of our car, we still had our old-fashioned jack and donut to remedy the situation. As we began the jacking process, a vehicle pulled up behind us and a man in his twenties got out. He asked if we needed assistance and, before we really got a chance to answer him, he began working on our problem. He seemed a little gung-ho but who’d argue with help? As we continued our conversation with him, his eagerness made more sense. He was a mechanic and, apparently, interceded regularly to help those with car troubles out. With both him and Jason toiling together, our tire was changed relatively swiftly, minus one hiccup. Jason forgot to put on the emergency brake so as soon as one side of the vehicle was entirely elevated by the jack, it went lurching forward, bending the jack. Sufferin’ succotash! How many things can get botched in one night?

FYI, I did eventually get my phone back. It had to be left with a gas station attendant but we were able to retrieve it after we got our flat issues resolved.

Apparently, in this story Jason is sort of the rogue and the strangers that acted with honesty and kindness are the heroes. Thanks John and random biking dudes for coming to our aid. This tale might have ended much more horrendously without you.

And that’s it folks, the story of how Jason, a certified genius, made a series of mistakes in a short period of time that could have been avoided through the utilization of common sense. His errors will now be immortalized through the timelessness of the internet. After all, how could I tease him with precision about the events of that evening for the remainder of my life if I couldn’t properly remember the particulars?

And for those of you that are a little dense or that don’t know my mannerisms, all this is meant in good fun. Jason will laugh at this post not cry in the bathroom. Unless, of course, today is one of his arbitrarily selected behave-like-a-girl days. Oh double burn! And yes, I am still joking.