Dings, Rings, and Things

Have you ever really looked forward to something for a long time, and then when it finally happened it wasn’t nearly as good as you thought it might be? Or maybe it wasn’t even good at all? Yeah, that’s never happened to me either. It’s all roses around here, let me tell you.

Last week I started commuting by bike to work again after a long layoff. I was pretty excited about it because I have pretty much run out of things to blog about, and there is always good blog material on the commute.

I gotta say, the first day I was a little disappointed. Nothing really happened. It was dark, and it was cold, it made me a little crunchy around the edges – but that was it.

Friday was my second day on the ol bike commute. I was about a mile in to my 12 mile trip when I heard a sound to my left. I said to myself ‘self, that sounds a lot like cars running into each other’. Sure as hell I look to my left and about 15 feet to my left and there is a car with its front inserted into the back of the car in front of it. Nice.

Yup, someone going all Jeff Gordon and bump drafting in the 20 mph school zone. It wasn’t too bad, but there were bits of car scattering about. I hit the brakes as the cars maneuvered to a stop in front of me. Huh, you don’t see that every day.

That made for a good day (for me, not for Jeff Gordon). Little did I know that Friday would get rich on my way home.

So rocking on the gb towards home I come across that bad guy from Scooby doo. You know, the one that says “… and I would have gotten away with it…”. Yeah, that guy. He was riding his bike coming the other way and as I get close to him he start gesturing and saying something about ‘over there’. He looked and sounded just like Scooby doo guy. I am pretty much positive it was him. Well, I assumed that the guy was hassling me. I was about to tell him where I thought he should go when I looked the direction where he was gesturing.

There was this guy down on a knee proposing to a girl. At least I assume he was proposing. I mean, what else do people do on their knees along the gb? Well yeah, there is that – but that is a few miles downstream on fantasy island, and at night, besides didn’t the police sting put an end to that?

So anyway, yeah the Scooby doo guy go’s nuts trying to show me the proposing couple. Or at least the couple that seemed to be partaking in some proposalage. I guess the guy had never seen a proposal. I guess I haven’t either. Now that is something you don’t see every day.

I was still contemplating my good fortune when I pulled off the gb in Garden City. I hadn’t been on the road long when the sound of a car driving slowly behind me shook me out of my revelry. If you ride a bike you know that nothing good can come of a car driving slowly behind you.

This car drives up alongside me. I look over. Holy crap! There it is! A chick exposing a jublee! I know its hard to believe. I hardly believe it myself! Really! Exposing a jublee with one hand, kind of leaning over to facilitate such exposure – and oh yeah, trying to drive with the other hand.

So yeah, there it is a little jublee in a whole lot of Honda Civic. A Honda Civic that seems to be getting closer to me by the minute. Nice. I am getting flashed and run off the road all at once.

I gotta admit I was a bit dumbfounded. Maybe more than a bit. In fact, I haven’t been that dumbfounded since road rage guy called me a ‘pretty little Mormon boy’- which I still haven’t figured out.

Anyway, it was over as fast as it started. I continued to role, in fact, I rolled up next her car at the next stop sign. You know, by the bible college. How nice is that – in front of the bible college. Anyway, there she is laughing and taking a picture of me with her cell phone.

Wait! I thought I was the one who was supposed to take pictures.

So yeah, I am probably on the internet somewhere with the subtitle of ‘Dumbfounded Guy I Flashed’.

Seriously.

I still can’t believe it.

Flasher girl, if you ever read this, not to sound ungrateful, but I have some ideas to improve the experience for both of us. It would go something like this…

You roll up next to me (give me 3 feet please). Roll down your window, then say…

You - ‘Pardon me, would you like to see my jublees?’

Me – ‘Yes, yes I think I would thank you.’

Then you drive up the road a few blocks, get out, and pull up your shirt. There is no need to go halfway – you lose the full effect. As I roll up I will give you an appropriate compliment, you know, like ‘nice jublees!’

Then I will stop, and we can each take pictures, you know, for evidence that we can show our friends.

Yes, I think it should go something like that.

OK, at any rate, that was a hell of a way to kick off my commuting season. Like a 9 out of 10 on the angry cyclist scale of bicycle commuting bizarity. Now that is something you don't see every day.