I grew up in a small town in South Carolina.   Clinton, South Carolina. 

I used to spend much of my free time (at least in the summer) traipsing around town on my bike with my younger sister Leslie and my friend Suzanne.  I don’t remember quite how old we were, but I’d say under 10 (and then subtract three years for Leslie.)  We would ride our bikes all day long, only occasionally stopping to collect enough change to hit up the Pizza Inn buffet, which was a place that charged 20 cents per year, so it was easy to get enough change for that.  They also gave out free buffet coupons for perfect report cards and we tended to have a fair amount of those lying around too.

One day there was a bike-a-thon of sorts going through the neighborhood we lived in.  A lot of people rode by, and kept asking us if we were in the bike-a-thon.  We got tired of being asked that, so we made signs that we put on our backs that said "We are not in the bike-a-thon."

I try to remember that when I tease children today.  Sometimes it gets old.  And you want to make a sign about it, because then people will stop asking you.  And then later you realize that likely no one thought you were in the bike-a-thon because you were a bunch of little girls riding your bikes around a neighbor’s driveway, and the bike-a-thon was all adults, adults who thought they were VERY FUNNY.