Self-Applied Roadside Assistance

That’s not as sexy as it sounds, let me assure you.

So, I rode to work yesterday without incident, but I need to invest in some of those slightly hilarous booties for cycling, ’cause here in Raincouver on Canada’s Wet Coast, we surely do love ourselves some rain, I tell you what.  So this means my 40-minute ride to work equals a pair of very wet shoes, but that’s fine, I have new clean dry socks to wear, right?  This would work if I was at home, and flumping around the house without wearing those same wet shoes, but NOOOOOO, I put the same shoes right back on again, and within 15 minutes, I’ve got wet feet again.  Doi.

Today was a good ride in, and a good start to the ride home, but about six blocks away from work, I got a quick flat, and had to do a tube change under the awning of a banking building.  The good news is that it only took me about five minutes to swap the tube, the bad news was that the little cool lookin’ pump I have in my sidebag is missing a piece, and while it made pumping noises, it wasn’t actually creating a seal to add air to the tube.

So I had to walk my bike six blocks in rush-hour traffic to fill the tube.  I got to play that fun game cyclists play at gas stations when you fill the tire in short bursts, trying to get some decent pressure, without turning the tire into a rock or blowing it out completely.  I did that once when I was a kid, and it scared the hell outta me.  Seriously, it was like a balloon-animal, and then F-PAKH!  Low became flat.

Also, people were way psychotic on the roads tonight, maybe due to the rain (which is odd, considering how often it rains here).  I wasn’t directly involved in any of it, but there was honking, there was yelling, there were jaywalking popped-collar d-bag pedestrians picking fights with drivers.  I was full-moon gonzo out there, and I think if I wasn’t cycling at the time, I would’ve been feeling sorta freaked out there.  For the most part, I was just trying to keep myself from getting punched, or run over, or cursed out.

The flat, swap, walk, and reinflate only added about 20 minutes to my trip home, so that’s actually pretty good, considering I was doing it in the rain, and using my headlights (on my helmet) for lighting.

Watching the Craig Fergusson show, which is charming as hell, but the ads are part of the show due to the whole “Here’s what this drug does, sorta, that we’re not going to actually promise, but just allude to”  and then there’s 24 seconds (or maybe 48) side effects.  They just go on and on.  I keep expecting them to go into a Mark and Brian (of KLOS in LA) side effect list that includes “line-dancing, swollen vowels, and particulate marsupials.”

After Craig Fergusson is Deal or No Deal, and just once, I’d like someone to try to make the counter-deal that they’ll walk away for free if they get to blow up a surgical glove on their head like host Howie Mandel used to do (by pulling it down to your lip, and then blowing it up with your nose), but then make him (a self-confessed germaphobe) WEAR IT afterwards.  Watching the over-excited contestants trying to hug him or shake his hand, and watching him do this weird “oh hey, whoa, nope, back up” thing is funny, and a little bit creepy.

With seven cases left to pick, the soon-to-be sister in-law just blew the chance at $500,000.  You cannot tell me she’s not gonna hear about that for the rest of her life.