some people and places that won't appear in my next blog

What do you think about horns on bicycles?  Good, bad indifferent?  I tentatively encourage anyone who sees this and digs bicycles to briefly eyeball a particular campaign that has some merit.  I have no connection to the people running this kickstarter other than our household having pledged to buy two ...smorns**..... if they end up being made.

I don't have a horn on my bicycle having always preferred to make use of the high volume fast on the trigger horn that is my voice.  If you scare me with your car I start screaming within nanoseconds.  For loud and totally terrified I can give it up as well as any B actress in a trashy horror movie.

This one time in Palo Alto I was sitting at a red light, University and Bryant Street.  There was a car waiting in front of me.  There was a car behind me.  I had my darling Rapunzel safely loaded into her Burley wagon and I could totally taste home which was just three miles or so further to go.  This was when the car in front of me saw a parking space or a squirrel or a good deal on a camisole or who fucking knows what really and starts to back up.  If you've ever towed a kid wagon with your bicycle you know it is not all that easy to back up.

Pinned between cars in a narrowing gap, my darling Rapunzel threatened I screamed a magnificent scream.  I screamed deeply and loudly and the windows rattled on store fronts and a passing SUV had kittens.  The car in front jerked to a halt.  What was that bad noise?  He tentatively inched back, a retry.  I screamed again, louder if that's possible.  Then the car finally understood that this bad noise, this  screaming, was somehow, connected to himself.  I don't know if he got it at this point but he stopped attempting to back up and waited for the light to turn green instead.

I don't promise to give up on screaming because I am not sure I can give up on screaming but if this smorn thing gets funded I'm going to at minimum supplement my screaming with an even louder racket that is conveniently coupled to a light and a howitzer.  Ok not a howitzer.  Maybe in version 2 if we're very lucky.

Here is a different but still fun horn to get you "in the mood"

















**not my favorite name, no.