In 1994, after downing the better part of a bottle of bourbon in the college dorm, my buddies and I decided to go for a ride. Being a college campus, there were always plenty of bikes to “borrow” to ride around, so that’s what we did. I recall looking down at the front quick release swinging and swaying as I showed off my drunken 1am fitness level. Being toasted, I didn’t have the capacity to equate that quick release with my impending doom, so I launched off of the curb. The front wheel came off, the fork hit the pavement, followed by my face. Not a scratch on my hands, because you need to be sober to use those to break a fall, apparently. I came to with my buddies freaking out, some dude holding a t shirt to my face and a throbbing everywhere. After mystery man drove me to the ER, I also recall the matronly nurse asking if my 19 yo self had been drinking. She took my affirmative answer as meaning that I might not feel anything, and that I probably deserved a lesson, so she proceeded to clean and debride (think small scrub brush) my face so they could stitch around my eye. The best part? The next day, we discovered that the bike I borrowed was my former roommate’s bike. We had a good laugh and he decided that fate had punished me enough by not asking me to replace the badly bent fork. Many lessons learned that weekend.