Bicycles are demonic.

The handlebars have no regard for laws and limits of the natural world.

Is there anything more absolutely evil than a bicycle?

Yes, they are fun to ride.

Yes, they give us a healthy way to reduce our carbon footprints.

Yes, they have value and a respectable voice, for both reasons above and beyond.

But they will turn on us. And stick their rubber handlebars in the most vulnerable pockets of our being.

I’m talking about moving a bicycle. Without riding it. Handling it with the hands. Lifting it. Trying to put in the hatchback. Trying to make it fit parallel to other bicycles. I have never encountered anything more unwieldy. And I live by a raging ocean and a volcano.

I have held wild animals. I have raised children. I have been a substitute teacher in a room full of kids who were given plates of candy and marshmallows. Keeping that class together was impossible. But not as impossible as picking up my son’s bicycle and putting in the trunk of our Subaru Forester.

The hatch goes up, the bike goes in. The handlebars turn to the left. The rear wheel rubs against the bumper. The hatch will not close. I take the bike out. The handlebars hit me in the head, the rear wheel gets me in the crotch. And the dance repeats.

And repeats.

Until I manage to squeeze the front wheel in between the headrests and the rear wheel smushes against something.

I don’t put my son’s bike in the Subaru a lot. So this might be seen as a once in a while penance. Except we have three other bicycles in our garage. And they are just as devious as my son’s.

Ideally, they’d line up right next to each other. EXCEPT BIKES REFUSE TO BE PARALLEL. If you can’t store things in parallel succession, how can you store them? This question is not to you, but to the almighty, the supreme being.

I don’t hear any answers. This does not shake my faith. It bolsters it. For I believe this question is what some might call a holy mystery, but what God, themself, might call “above my pay grade.”

The handlebars turn. The bike stands still. The handlebars turn another way. Such simple motions, useful when riding the bike, but when not riding—the source of untold pinches and bang-thumps.