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VIETNAM — When I was a kid, I was obsessed with popping wheelies on my bike. That isn't too unique, as I think most kids love the rush of adrenaline that comes from lifting one tire off the ground for a brief period of time. I mean, in that moment, you're basically riding a unicycle.
What made me different is that I called this process, "Doing a pop-a-wheelie." My dad would always roll his eyes and try to explain that I was saying it wrong. You don't "do a pop-a-wheelie," he'd say, you simply pop a wheelie.
I don't think his corrections ever sank in. To my kid brain, the full name of this particular bike stunt was a "pop-a-wheelie." And describing it naturally required a verb, so, of course, I needed to add the word "do."
Fun fact — I also had a childhood habit of referring to mechanical pencils as "electric pencils." My dad would try to tell me that there was no electricity in these pencils, so I was saying it wrong. But I stuck to my guns and called them "electric pencils" until junior high.
Why am I rambling on about "pop-a-wheelies" and "electric pencils"? Because this video of an epic wheelie in Vietnam brought back a flood of memories.
It's not every day that you pop a wheelie that intense and walk away from it — he easily could've been catapulted right off that truck.
