How do you split a bicycle?

Ah, delivering newspapers. I believe we were 11 years old when my step-brother and I started our paper route partnership. We covered the new subdivision in our small rural town; he took the inner loop and I took the outer. Monday to Friday were a breeze and a nice bit of exercise after school, but when the Saturday edition came out with all of the enclosed flyers that sure was a burden on us young mules.

After two years though we'd proven to be top-notch delivery boys. We never missed a day, we collected all the monthly dues on schedule, and were always super pleasant with the customers. So one day the call came in from head office, "Congrats! You've won a mountain bike!". We jumped and yelled with excitement until one parent asked, "but how do you split a bicycle between two boys?". Oh damn...problems were on the horizon. Who would ride it on which days? Would we take turns? We're talking about two young men on the verge of puberty with all sorts of rebellious thoughts and actions. How could this possibly go well.

It didn't.

Being this our first "mountain bike" I looked for every possible thing to jump it over. My brother, the more, ummm, reckless one, thought it was cool to ghost ride it into other peoples bikes. It was his and mine, so who was right to say how the bike got used? Things came to a head one day when we equally decided to play a random game of chicken. He was on the new bike and I was on one of our old ten-speeds. Naturally you'd think he'd win but because I was almost twice his size we ended up doing equal damage to both bikes. We limped home with both our broken bikes and broken bodies.

Delivering newspapers was a great gig for me at that age. I learned responsibility, attention to detail, accounting, and dedication. But I also learned that you can't split a bicycle.