So there I am not far from home, riding along thinking about the mounds and mounds of laundry I need to do. Mostly because with each pedaling motion I am reminded that I am wearing bike-unfriendly under things under my highlighter yellow jersey and attendant black cycling shorts.

 Sexy underwear week was a giant mistake, propagated by laziness. It could have been avoided entirely, if only I had the energy after work to do a single load of laundry or maybe if I had not found myself painfully addicted to Oregon Trail on Facebook. Who the hell knows. 

 As I ride I consider the many choices that led to me speeding alond on my ultra-light-weight racing bike in a lacy thong. I slow a little, as I am approaching the driveways for the Target and a fast food place and considering the right way to adjust said errant under thing.

 As I near the apron of the Target, I see this guy waving me to go. He's all smiles. Wave. Wave. So I pull through, and suddenly he pulls out right at me. In a moment I am desperately braking and trying to unclip my pedals.

 I am unsteady. I tip. I see his bumper.

 Unclip my cleats. Foot on the ground. And he pulls away. Not hit.

 Terrified. So close I could have touched the bumper with my nose. Gold Car, it drives off. I crouch down on the side of the road, trying to hold up my bike. Maybe it was holding me. I was  shaking horribly just a few feet from the apron of the shopping center.

 To my right in the parking lot of Target, a man runs over to me yelling "Oh shit. Oh Shit! Are you all right?"

 He's young, maybe 20, dressed in wide low hip-hop shorts. "Did I hit you?" "Oh my god!" 

 I don't remember what I said. I was trying to drink water, and spilling it down my face. I couldn't find my mouth. Then he just steps closer and says, "I'm so scared right now, and so sorry." And I apologized back, and tell him how scared I was too.

 He asks, "Can I hug you? I need a hug to know you're ok." I don't recall agreeing, but he hugs me anyway and I notice he's crying. As he wipes his cheek, I see a massive tattoo of the Virgin Mary on this right forearm. 

 We both stand there and as he apologizes over again a woman in a white truck pulls up, and asks if I'm ok. She shouts out that she has a bike rack in the back if I need a ride. "Do you need a ride? I couldn't keep going after that." She comes over too, and sees nothing is physically wrong.  We say some stuff to each other about biking, I assure her I'm ok. I finally get the water in my mouth. 

 The guy in the gold Corolla keeps apologizing. He's shaking so hard, says something about dropping off his sister for work at the Target and going to church. "My God I almost killed you. I'm so sorry." That's when the car full of old people showed up.  Giant blue LeBaron: 3 old ladies and and old guy driving.

 The old guy steps out of the car. "Miss. Do you need an ambulance? We all saw the accident, we were headed west when it happened."  I try to say there wasn't an accident.

 He looks at the man who’s still apologizing to me and says "We're calling the police." I ask him not to, trying to explain nothing happened. Something almost did, but it didn't. He doesn't seem to notice.

 He talks to the woman in the white truck. They seem convinced I was hit, but I try to explain it just looked that way because I stopped badly. Undeterred, the old man talks loudly on his phone presumably with 911.

 The guy who almost hit me says "I'm so sorry.” He just stands there looking helplessly at the old man. “Can I have another hug?” And this time I hug him and it felt like hugging an old friend. So I ask, "I thought I saw you wave?" And he looks down and tearfully says "I was dancing in my car to Lady Gaga."

 I didn't know what to do, so I rode off before the police could come because I didn't want to have to say what really happened: infectious beats and sexy underwear almost killed me.