Riding a Tandem Bike

While on Mackinac Island, MI, where no motor vehicles are allowed, we rented bikes for a couple hours. I took our younger son on a seat on my back wheel. My husband rode a tandem bike with our six-year-old son behind him. Thing is, on the tandem bike, the adult seat in the front did not have adult pedals or spacing. My husband's legs were moving like he was doing the doggy-paddle the entire time. Also, our six-year-old didn't mind all the hard work. He told his dad that he could relax, because he (our son) had things covered equally. Dad would pedal going up the hills, while he would pedal going down.

How Much Did We Pay For Our New Bikes?

My husband and I decided to buy ourselves some bikes a couple weeks ago. They were new, and bought through a brand-names sporting goods store. We paid a penny each for them. Truth!

Okay. Here's the deal. We went looking for new bikes, on a day flooded with other errands. We found what we liked, but since we didn't have our bike rack with us, couldn't take it home. We were told we would have to put them on lay-away, even though we'd be back in half an hour to claim them. The clerk also told us that we could not pay for them entirely -- store policy for lay-aways -- but we could pay everything but one penny.

Dear Hubby and I grinned at each other, paid for both bikes -- all but two pennies -- went home, got the bike rack and went back to the store. We walked in with a penny each in our palms and said to the different clerk now at the counter: "We want to buy two bikes. Here's two pennies." Without blinking, he said, "Oh. You have them on lay-away."

Well... WE thought it was funny to buy bikes for a penny each.