Monday, March 28, 2011

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike, but would even Freddie Mercury ride it without a seat?

Any time you take a bike ride home at midnight, you must always weigh the good with the bad. Generally, whenever I arrive home and I'm not knife murdered to death, I mark it down as a “good” day. Although one time someone bazooka-murdered me to death... that wasn't so good.

With that said, I'd love to take you on a typical night's ride. It comes with its fair share of good and bad. I have enumerated which is which, so you can feel free to keep score, I imagine they'll come out pretty much even.

GOOD: It's a crisp night. I have 10 miles to go, my bike is in perfect working order and I'm ready to pedal my heart out.
GOOD: Five miles pass, and I'm still rolling. My bike remains in perfect working order.
BAD: I hit a bump, which somehow caused my bike seat to fall off. Apparently the nut that holds the seat on fell off and vanished. I retrieve the seat but cannot find the nut. This places my bike in imperfect working order.
Not to get too technical, but perfect working order would have more things connected.
BAD: A bike needs the nut that holds the seat on, to hold the seat on. Without it, I have no seat on my bike and must bike standing up.
BAD: Surprisingly, there aren't any 24-hour-late-night-bicycle-seat-sales stores open at this hour.
BAD: And I really don't have enough space in my messenger bag to hold a bike seat.
INDETERMINATE: But I place it there anyway.
BAD: Biking standing up kind of sucks.
GOOD: My bike lock hadn't been unlocking recently, but when I stop at a 24-hour-late-night-grocery-sales store for some much needed rest and Ramen, it does unlock!
GOOD: I lock my bike up, preventing any mustachioed bad dudes from saying “Hey, that seatless bike sure looks fun!” before absconding with my only form of transportation.
GOOD: At the grocery store, I see there's a new type of Doritos!
BAD: Doritos, unlike bike seats, are not a necessity.
"Similarities abound."--Damn, how does
he make it so cool?
BAD: Remember that insane awesome foreshadowing I did when I talked about my bike lock actually unlocking? I sit outside the grocery store for 20 minutes trying to get said lock to unlock. I get so desperate that at one point I contemplate approaching a late night road crew with a sob story about how my bike has no seat and it's locked outside a grocery store, and it's 12:40 in the morning, and it's cold, and I couldn't use the bathroom in the grocery store because they were cleaning it, and those orange reflectors are very becoming on them.
BAD: I don't.
GOOD: Miraculously, the lock pops open.
GOOD: I realize I will never be an action hero, so I use this moment to toss the lock in the garbage and cooly proclaim “Hopefully down there, you'll find Nessie, because you're a lock, and she lives in Loch Ness, so similarities abound.”
BAD: I will never be an action hero.
BAD: Back on the road, it really sucks to bike standing up.
GOOD: I'm getting really awesome at knowing the sound a bike seat makes when it falls out of a messenger bag and clanks on the ground.
BAD: I know the sound a bike seat makes when it falls out of a messenger bag and clanks on the ground.
BAD: I'm bleeding from the arm, and I have no idea why.
BAD: Did I mention how much I dislike biking standing up?
GOOD: I get home.
BAD: My bads outnumber my goods 13 to 9, and this entry definitely did not help matters. Luckily, I'm a really good practitioner of revisionist history.
GOOD: When the fog covered me for the last mile of my ride, no mist monsters burst out, and I didn't have to kill my friends nor my family.
GOOD: I also didn't get hit by any cars.
GOOD: In the fog industry, we call that a “two-fer.”
GOOD: My cats shoot me a triumphant “... soooo, when are you going to feed us?” As I walk in the door.
GOOD: We're gonna make that “indeterminate” entry from earlier count as a “good.”
GOOD: And we have now equaled out.

You see, when you go on insane, freezing, bike seat losing rides, you do take the good with the bad. And no matter how much you wish those fog monsters did come and murder you, it's just not going to happen. Don't worry, it will all even out.

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