Friday, April 18, 2008

Bad Day Gone Bad


Yesterday was a busy one, but the busy-ness wasn’t unexpected. It was one of the first gorgeous days of spring that makes everyone want to go to the bike shop, drop their bike off for perhaps a few hours for some major repair work, and then pick it up and take it for a ride before putting it away until next spring. It is always a shock to some folks when they’re told that about a hundred other people were thinking the same thing and that the only thing we can do for them before this weekend is explain that the rows and rows of service tickets in the service board aren’t a creative recycling technique.

I’m no stranger to this kind of thing, and delusional expectations combined with a mob scene had nothing to do with the fact things weren’t going my way. Normally, I can simultaneously check in two repairs, sell a road bike, answer the phone, and search for random car rack parts without breaking a sweat. But yesterday, other forces were working against me, and for a while there, I was having a very bad day.

It all started with a bang. While trying to get a stubborn tire to seat properly on an old, crappy rim using the over-inflate-the-damn-thing-until-it-settles technique, I blew the tire to shreds. When this happens, a heart-stopping blast equivalent to a cannon being fired occurs inches from your face. It is an extraordinarily unpleasant thing that happens every so often, and over the years, it has happened to me probably a dozen times. My hearing, which is diminishing like hair on a balding man’s head, has been further compromised as a result, and was further compromised again yesterday. I felt like I had pillows stuffed inside my ringing ears for about an hour. During that time I received a snide remark from a fellow coworker about my having devoured a sandwich while on the clock. Or at least I think that was what I heard. Come to think of it, maybe being deaf won’t be so bad after all.

And then I was handed a message that read, “So-and-so called about her bike. It’s urgent that she speaks with you.” Like the onslaught of bikes on a sunny day in early spring, this wasn’t at all unexpected. I was so sure that So-and-so would hate her bike after riding it that I would’ve bet my entire savings of twelve dollars on it, because firstly, that bike is cursed, (it is the sole remaining bike of a brand we no longer carry, and it’s been returned once already), and secondly, she’s one of the myriad people who thinks that bicycles should be as comfortable as your grandmammy’s sofa. Nonetheless, that message could’ve come on a different day. Now I was just plain bummed out.

So she’s coming in next week with that dreaded bicycle. I’ll see if I can get the handlebars high enough so that there is no pressure on her hands whatsoever, and that the entire weight of her body is focused on her saddle. But first, I better strap a sofa cushion to it.

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