The boy waits in the car while a lady does his mother's hair in the salon. His mother left the windows cracked. It's safer inside the car; he has toys in the backseat. No iPad though because he sassed off at breakfast.

He wishes his mother were getting a power bike instead of a hair-do. The long parking lot is busy with people trying out these special bikes. An old guy with a gut loops around three times. A pretty teen in a hot pink flowered shirt flies by.

The boy has seen Muppets riding bikes on TV. Maybe it was a movie. Piggy and Kermit on two wheelers smooth as the power bikes. Real bikes wobble but Piggy and Kermit glide. Kermit tries to do tricks for Piggy. She misses his trick—handstanding on the handlebars—but catches him in her basket when it counts.

The power bike salesman helps a mom with two kids onto a Mom bike. The boy doesn't like the Mom bike with its two spots in back for kids. It's not safe back there—the little girl could fall out. And now there's a garbage truck driving through, emptying bins. Be careful!

A boring man rides by. Why isn't anyone wobbling? These bikes are like cheating, like the training wheels Dad wanted him to take off his bike, but when it was time, Dad was gone. The Muppets are allowed to cheat because they're Muppets. Now the boy remembers seeing the Muppets another time. He doesn't know if he dreamed these Muppets or saw them on TV. He was such a child back then, always having bad dreams. But it wasn't a dream. The boy watched a family on TV watching the Muppets on their TV—Kermit and Fozzie—when someone rings the family's doorbell. The father gets up to answer, and as he opens the door, the man on the porch shoots him dead. Then, the boy changed the channel, so he'll never know why.

The boring man opens his hatchback and shoves a bike in. He bought it! The man tries this way and that, but the bike won't fit. He glares at the tire, arms crossed over his chest while the Mom bike zooms by. "Oh my!" the mom says. "This is too fast for me!" The little girl echoes "Oh my! Oh my," and the boy wonders when she'll fall out.

Now the boring man opens a back door, resituates his new bike. Seems like he's got it. He slams the hatch so hard the boy would have gotten in trouble. Slams the back door hard and then the driver's side door. The boy's mother is still getting her hair done because she's dating now. She still isn't going to let the boy meet her date because he's some kind of monster or maniac, the boy thinks, but they've been at it for two months. The old guy with the gut loops around a fifth time. The little girl shouts "Oh my!" And the boring man with the new power bike blasts out of the parking spot without even looking.


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