It took her years to get the joke, but that only made it more amusing.
My wife saw a recent Facebook posting from a childhood friend, who was a buddy of her younger brother, and it reminded her of a long-ago summer at the New Jersey seashore where she picked up on a verbal chiding that the boys often would holler when a cyclist rode past: “Hey, why ride a bike, when you can wear one?”
She didn’t get it, but it sounded good at the time, and she whole-heartedly joined in the fun. All summer. And from time to time from then on. Never really gave it much thought.
Wasn’t until 12-13 years later, while working in newspaper advertising and retrieving an ad proof from a sporting goods store in Fairbanks, Alaska, that she noticed BIKE athletic supporters in the display case. Suddenly, she was 13 again, and seeing bikes on the boardwalk.
Red-faced, she phoned her brother in Philadelphia to share the revelation and got the horse laugh along with the admonition, “I thought you knew!”
Silly girl. Product of Catholic grade-schooling. Probably never heard a limerick with “Nantucket” in it, either.
Her brother is now gone, but the memories remain sweet and precious. No word yet on the friend’s recollection.
Ransom Man 
Sorry about her brother.
Was he not wearing a bike athletic supporter?Poor thing.I knew this broad who spent countless summers riding up and down the Jersey Shore. Not bikes either.