Ride the Bike

Let's say we live on a spaceship, with a food replicator and some cool futuristic entertainment systems and hydroponic gardens and amusment parks and everything.

And the spaceship has all these sensors and it knows exactly how much it costs to keep each of us alive and handle our waste and whatever it takes to produce all the different kinds of food and cool clothes and luxuries and whatever else each of us wants every day.

And just for fun, let's say there's no privacy, so everybody knows how much everybody else costs.

And there's these Bikes in the spaceship, attached to generators, and each of us has to ride the Bikes for a certain amount of time to "pay" our individual Bike Bills, or all the lights will go out and the replicators won't give us any food.

The guys that have bigger appetites for luxuries, and the more wasteful folks, have to ride the Bike more, and the folks who are frugal don't have to ride the bike so much, so its all fair like that.

And maybe its done in a clever way, too, with an age variable, y'know, so when you are younger, you ride the Bike more, so that when yer older, you don't have to ride the Bike so much, and stuff like that.

But then you break your leg.

And now you have to pay for the medical stuff, so the damn thing wants you to ride the Bike even more, to pay for all that, but you can't ride even ride the Bike a little, 'cause you got a broken leg!

Okay, so let's go back a step, and include a bunch of mathematics based on accident statistics over a certain period of time that makes everybody ride the Bike more than they would've normally, so that in the event that somebody breaks their leg, everybody has the extra Bike riding for the broken leg folks paid for, and nobody has to pay that full amount all by themselves, y'know, the damage is spread around so it don't seem so bad.

But then you start noticing how I always have a broken leg, so I never have to ride the Bike.

I'm such an unlucky and clumsy guy, y'know, poor me, limping around, seems like my darn leg hardly ever gets a chance to heal before I end up breaking it again!

But then you start noticing how my friends all start having a lot of broken legs too, and they never have to ride the Bike either!

And then you start to notice how our tastes for luxuries are starting to get really extravagant and expensive compared to a normal person that would've had to ride the Bike to pay for things!

Oh sure, we tried to be good at first, y'know, 'cause we don't want you to think we're mooches, but what're we supposed to do, sit around on our hands?

Without having to spend all that time riding the Bike, we get sorta bored, y'know?

And the damn computer recalculates everything with this new accident rate and luxury consumption data, and it starts making all you healthy folks ride the Bike even more!

Oh, and us Poor Broken Legs Folks suffer from depression too, y'know, 'cause of the whole Post-Traumatic Leg Breaking Syndrome thing, and how bored we are, so somebody has gotta pay for all the drugs and medications and therapy sessions we need and stuff too!

Every day, you gotta ride the Bike a litte more!

And we get to use the handicapped parking space in front of the spaceship's entertainment system too!

Now let's say we all have families.

And you notice that everyone in my family has broken legs.

And everyone in all my buddies families have broken legs too!

We're just so unlucky!

And now everyone in your family, your wife and your kids, has to ride the Bike to pay the Bike Bill for me and all my Broken Leg Friends and our Broken Leg Families, with our insatiable appetites for luxuries and drugs and our special seating arrangement in front of the Playstation XXIIV!

And you and your wife and your kids end up spending most of your time riding the Bike.

And me and my buddies have all this extra time on our hands, since we don't have to ride the Bike.

And then you find out we're all sleeping with your wife!

Its your fault, y'know, you're so tired and grumpy all the time, I wouldn't want to spend my free time with you either!

And you don't spend enough time with her anyways, 'cause yer so busy on that damn Bike all the time!

Plus you're sorta cheap and stuff, y'know?

I mean, you never buy her anything nice or take her anywhere.

While me and my friends are more than happy to use your Unlimited Bike Credit Card to buy her diamonds and tons of jewlery and drive her around the more amusing and expensive parts of the spaceship in fancy go-carts made out of solid gold and we all wear fancy clothes with jeweled casts on our broken legs and exotic perfume and we're all handsome as hell thanks to the miracles of plastic surgery and liposuction that you and your family has to pay for!

Hey, if you really loved her, you'd be thanking me for showing her a good time.

You should think about taking one of those expensive Training Courses on Sensitivity.

Its worth it.

The Advanced Programs are really good, too.

You really should explore the services avaiable on the ship a little more, there's all kinds of awesome stuff here.

The only thing its missing is some privacy.