My embarrassing moment happened when I was 7 years old and I still at times cringe over and regret it. I used to be a frequent bike rider as a child. I would often on days with nothing to do, ride my bicycle around the neighborhood unattended. My parents trusted me to not cause any incidents as I had not one since I learnt how to ride a bike at the age of 5. On this day I was riding at a high pace as the streets were almost completely clear. I was seeing a pedestrian once every 3 streets and I would always be riding the street side of the sidewalk. As I continued biking down these streets, I had ridden down half of a completely empty street. A baby of about 3 years of age came rushing out all of a sudden out of a Chinese laundromat completely unattended. I panic slammed the brakes on my bike, however the bike I was riding had only front brakes. This caused the front wheel to completely lock up and at the speed I was going, caused me to fly forward off my bike as my bike did front flips over the baby. It looked like something completely out of a movie to anybody watching. I was so sure nothing had happened to the baby as both me and my bike ate pavement 2 feet behind her. I still immediately got up and ran over to the baby to make sure she was okay. The baby still in shock of what had happened started bawling and her family and also whom I assumed were her parents came out of the laundromat saw what had happened and came out yelling at me in Mandarin. I instantly figured out that they owned the laundromat, however I could not understand what they were saying as I spoke Cantonese. I could see from their body language that they were extremely upset at me. Caught up with how misunderstood the situation was and how young I was, I ended up getting on my bike with tears in my eyes screaming “I’m sorry” over and over as I fled the scene. I rode home and tried to hide it from my parents, who instantly figured out due to how scraped up I was from eating pavement. I told them the truth and ended getting beaten and forbidden from riding my bike. I didn’t care, I no longer had any mood to ride my bike for pleasure ever again and felt relief as I was punished. I left my bike in the garage where it remains untouched to this day.
Side Note: I’ve been putting off these journal assignments as the pandemic ensued, I also wanted to wait and see for my experience for journal 6 but events started to take a turn which I will write about in #6.
