A comedy of errors

I set off for home on my bicycle last night at about 5.50pm. I'm bowling along nicely, not very far from work when I hear "POP! slap, slap, slap, slap." Groaning, I stopped the bike, checked both wheels, and nothing. I couldn't find anything on the tires, and they didn't seem to be deflated. I continued on, slowly. I could still hear "slap, slap, slap" and I could feel that something was stuck in one of the tires. I stopped again. That time I found a screw sticking in the back tire. But the tire still didn't seem to be deflated. I went to pull it out, and then thought better of it, as I thought that maybe the screw was stopping up the hole that it had made. I set off again, somewhat gingerly, hoping that maybe I could get most of the way home before having to walk. This time I can hear "slap, slop, kthock, kthock, kthuuungk." I get off the bike again. The tire was completely flat. I guess I had managed to dislodge the screw enough to let the air escape. Great.

So, did I turn around and go back to work? Well, I thought about it, but then I'd have to find a way to get the bike back home at some point and that seemed to be a lot of effort. Did I call someone to come and pick me up? Um, no, because the batteries on my cell phone had died because I usually use the car charger to keep it running. Bad me hadn't bothered to hunt for the regular charger when I knew I should have. So I decided to walk home. After a very short distance, I thought about how pointless it was to walk home, when there was a perfectly good bus route not very far away, and off I went.

I got to the nearest bus stop at 6.12pm. I looked down the street. Nothing. I'd looked up the bus timetable last week, just in case, and I remembered that the buses were about every 15 minutes or so. So I thought, well, instead of wasting time just sitting here, I'll just walk to the next bus stop, and check down the street every time. Because of course I couldn't possibly just sit there in case a whole ten minutes went by! And what do you know, as I was just about precisely mid-way between that stop and the next one, a bus went past. Cursing my brilliant decision making skills, and obviously excellent timing, I figured that seeing as the next one would be probably another 10-15 minutes, I may as well keep walking. By the third bus stop there was actually a timetable posted. The buses were scheduled to arrive at 6.05, 6.10, 6.15, 6.35 and 6.55. Great, I thought, that must have been the 6.15 and now I have twenty minutes to wait! So I continued on. And lo and behold, again as I was midway between stops, another bus went past. It was 6.25pm.

Dagnammit.

OK, I thought, that must have been the 6.15 that was running late. So I have at least 10 minutes to the next bus, and I'll keep walking a little bit further, thinking that at the rate I was going, I may as well end up walking all the way home after all. I walked to one more bus stop, and the road was starting to turn a little seedier. I was just thinking that this was getting ridiculous, and that my feet were starting to hurt when a black guy went past me on his bike, and shouted out "I'll trade ya!". Harrumph. Kick a girl when she's down, why don't you? I said, "yeah I've got a flat", probably more pathetically than I'd intended. He circled around in a parking lot, and said "are you going to get the bus?". I'd reached the bus stop by this point, so I said, "yup". "Oh," he said, "do you want a bus pass?" "What?" says I, "do you have one that isn't completely used up?". It turned out that he did, an all day pass that hadn't even been started yet, that he gave me. I asked if he wanted anything for it, and he said he'd take a dollar, so he could get a nice beer later. I happily parted with a dollar, as I knew that the fare was $1.25.

Then I said "well, I would have traded you the bike, but mine's probably a bit too girly for you!". It has pretty cherries painted on it, and a basket in the front. "Nah," he says, "that's a CADILLAC of a bike, that is, I'd fix it right up". Um, I wasn't aware that it was that obvious! So I said I'd fix it up myself when I got home. He said he'd better be off, and I sat waiting for the bus. I was not going to make the mistake of walking off again.

The bus came at 6.41pm. I had to get the bus driver to show me how to work the bike rack at the front, and how to swipe the buss pass. I felt pretty pathetic and obvious to everyone as a bus novice! My stop arrived, I got off, manhandled the bike off the bike rack, and who should come to a screeching halt as he pedalled down the sidewalk but the same guy that had given me the bus pass! "Man, that's amazing" he said. I was like "wow, we got here at the same time!" We kind of looked at each other, both amazed at the bizarre timing, with goofy grins on our faces. But I was then secretly thinking, damn, now he knows where my stop is, is this a bad thing?, until he said goodbye and pedalled off. And I felt like a heel that just because he was a black man on a bike, I'd deemed him as potentially dangerous. When he was actually just a nice guy.

I got home at 7.04pm. 1 hour and 15 minutes. When if I'd walked all the way without detouring and stopping at bus stops, it'd probably have taken me an hour and a half. Maybe a tad longer. But at least I didn't have blisters. This morning, I learned my lesson, and sat and waited at the first bus stop. It took me 35 minutes, door to door, 10 minutes of which was sitting at the bus stop, waiting. I could probably time it better next time.

I have an appointment to try to get my driver's license back on Thursday, so we'll see how that goes. But, given that riding the bus really wasn't bad, I may end up taking it occasionally, just because I can.