21 Chapters of Childhood, Chapter four.

When I was younger I had almost no depth perception. This was caused by my optic nerve being under developed at birth. This also resulted in some pretty hilarious accidents.

I would bump into door frames while walking through through doorways

I would try to grab things that were really far away

But possibly the most embarrassing and memorable of these is the day I tried to ride my bike through cement power pole.

I was so excited that I was riding my bike by myself with no freaking trainer wheels!!!

My Dad took my brothers and I out for a bike ride. He used the excuse that it would be fun but I think he just wanted to get us out of the house so we'd stop driving him crazy.

I hadn't quite mastered the straight line and kept looking backwards at the squiggly lines my tires made when I rode over the grass.

Of course no-one had yet informed me of the dangers of looking backwards while biking forwards.
As you can probably guess, I was about to learn first hand the true value of looking where you're going.

Dad called out to me and I turned around to look at him, as I did I noticed I was about to hit a power pole. I didn't have time to go around. Then I noticed it was one of the pole with the hole in the middle and suddenly it dawned on me, I could go THROUGH THE POLE!

It all seemed perfectly logical until my tire went through the gap.

I suddenly noticed my handle bars were much wider than the gap in the cement power pole. Unfortunately I realised this about a millisecond before the handle bars hit said cement power pole so of course I had no time to stop or turn away, merely stare in horror as the painful outcome of my foolish assumptions unfolded before me.

My handle bars hit the sides of the cement power pole, my bike lurched forward and I was propelled face first into the pole. Much to the delight of my brothers and the shame of myself.