Between a Rock and a Running Shoe

Sometimes I think I have a rock in my head. A fairly large one—granite perhaps, or maybe Gabbro—lodged in the part of my brain where reason is broadcast. My lovely fiancée disagrees, or pretends to disagree, but she’s a sweetheart, so she has yet to convince me otherwise. Here is an example of why I think my rock theory may be true: The other day, I thought it would be a good idea to go for a little run. It was a foolish idea that had no logical purpose, one which I can only attribute to a chunk of sedimentary deposit in my head. Why else, on a dreary spring day, while in a dreary mood, would I decide to engage in an activity that I am in absolutely no condition to do and have no right doing? I guess I figured some great suffering would pull me out of the doldrums, like fighting fire with a flame thrower.

I am a biker, a snowboarder, a skier, a paddler, a hiker, and a retail junker, but I am not a runner. I have no running gear. Nonetheless, I was going for a run, so I had to do my best with what I have. I threw on my UMaine sweatpants, which if nothing else seemed like a better choice than my snowboard pants, my bike shorts, or my wet suit. It was drizzling a bit, so I grabbed my lightweight, breathable rain jacket, and to keep my core warm, I wore a Capilene top and a micro fleece vest. I laced up my cross trainers, which I use for day hikes and which have as many holes as a regulation golf course, but were more appropriate than my hiking boots, my flip flops, or my dress shoes. And to really look like I knew what I was doing, I grabbed my iPod, which compared to the iPods I see strapped to runners’ arms, looks more like a cassette player. When I was fully “outfitted” I looked more like that guy at the ski resort with the jeans, the New York Jets Starter Jacket, and the lift ticket flapping in his face than a runner.

I went outside, took a few warm-up steps, and started running, at a pace I felt I could maintain—a pace that may or may not have been noticeably faster than walking backwards. I ran for 20 minutes with the elegance and grace of a dump truck. When I was done, I felt exhilarated—mostly because I was done—and for a brief moment I felt like I understood why someone would actually want to do this on a regular basis. That understanding vanished an hour later, when I felt as though I had ridden and been trampled by a large and very irritated bull.

My nose can run, and my mind can run. My mouth can run, and I can run out of words. I can run up a bar tab, and I can run out of money. I can run into someone on the street, and I can run a car into the ground. I can run a bike shop, and I can run a fever. I can run a set of rapids, but I cannot simply run. And as well, I cannot offer sound advice on running, so when a customer comes in needing help with running shoes or running apparel, I run away.

Some people, like Bruce Springsteen, were born to run. One of my favorite fellow coworkers, Chuck, is one of those people. When she runs, she glides effortlessly along with wings on her feet. Her special man friend, Chinch Bug, runs with her, but instead of wings on his feet, he just has shoes. He’s not so much like The Boss, but he apparently shares the same philosophy as David Bowie, who once said, “If you say run, I’ll run with you,” and to express his true loyalty and affection, he one-upped The Thin White Duke by sticking to his promise of, “If you say let’s run 50 miles in a single day, I’ll run with you.”

To all you runners out there, my hat is off. In my mind, I have nothing but feelings of awe and admiration for you. I mean that with the most sincerity, even though in my mind, I also have a rock. I gave running a shot, but I have conceded that, unlike you, I cannot run. And now I’ve run out of room.

My Cousin Lenny got Thrown out of a Motley Crue Concert: An Open Letter to Motley Crue

Dear Vince, Tommy, Nikki, and Mick,

My cousin Lenny, whose heart is a lot bigger than his brain, recently got thrown out of a Motley Crue concert for carelessly tossing an empty plastic beer cup on the floor. His buddy Marty got thrown out with him, apparently for being an accomplice to an empty beer cup thrower. In case I forgot to mention, they were at a Motley Crue concert, not a James Taylor, or Yo Yo Ma concert. And he threw an empty plastic beer cup. On the floor. Not an empty 40 oz glass bottle, which coincidentally was hurled into the air the first time Lenny saw you guys, and it struck him in the head, almost knocking him out. Fortunately, aside from a headache, he suffered no noticeable brain damage.

So there they were, a half hour after they arrived, before you had even played the opening lick of "Kick Start My Heart," standing outside the Verizon Wireless Arena, heartbroken and completely aghast. Lenny and Marty had seen you guys twenty years earlier in Old Orchard Beach, on the 'Dr. Feelgood Tour,' and this was their chance to relive the glory of the good old days while rocking out to "Girls, Girls, Girls." It was also Lenny's chance to rock out without a throbbing headache caused from being smacked with a airborn bottle of Colt 45.

.

After a futile attempt to plead their way back in, two cops came and told them to beat it, which they did. But after standing around on the sidewalk, wondering what to do for the rest of the night, Lenny decided he would give it one more shot, so he went back to talk to the door guy again. Clearly, he felt, they didn't deserve to get thrown out, and surely this nice door guy would empathize with their situation and say, "Sure you can go back in. And hey, just for the trouble, here are two backstage passes."

As soon as Lenny opened the front door, he was immediately grabbed by the same two officers, handcuffed, and tossed in the back of a large white van. Two hours later, he was released from the police station with a citation to appear in Manchester District Court to face charges of a violation of criminal trespassing.

Alone and lost on the cold streets of Manchester, NH, Lenny wandered around looking for Marty, who immediately after his good friend was carted away in the paddywagon, had gone to the bar. Eventually, Lenny found the bar where Marty had taken residence, took him back to the hotel, watched him pass out on the floor, lifted his drunk carcass onto his bed, and took his shoes off.

Not to be defeated, he then went online and purchased two tickets for the show in Portland, Maine the following night. The tickets to the second show totalled almost $200. For my cousin Lenny, that is a lot of money, but as Lenny says, "You can't put a price on redemption." If you heard one voice that rose above the roar of the crowd in Portland, it was him. And if you recall the most exuberant cheering while you boarded the tourbus, that was him too.

I just wanted you to know that you've got die hard fans out there, who just like my cousin Lenny, will do whatever it takes to throw the devil horns in the air along with you. After all you've been through, this should make you feel pretty good. Next time however, after finishing his beer, my cousin Lenny will gently place his cup on the floor.

.

Sincerely,

RJB

Spring Training Refraining

If you work at a bike shop then you’re probably like me: a seriously die hard, hard-core cyclist to the core. And there’s no time of year where this is more apparent than in the late winter/early spring, weeks before your first ride. You’re bursting with optimism, impetus, and enthusiasm, and in preparation for the riding season ahead, while the snow is still on the ground, without missing a single day, not a single day, rain or shine, hell or high water, dusk or dawn, you elaborate in great detail on how much, unlike last year, you are going to ride.

You resolutely declare that this year is going to be different, and you mean it. You’re not going to miss a single group mountain bike ride or group road bike ride. You’re going to ride a century—no, two centuries—every month. You’re going to compete in the race of truth every week in the Stowe Bike Club’s time trial. You’re going to race your mountain bike each week at Catamount. You’re going to race your mountain bike each week at Morse Farm. You’re going to commute, rain or shine, hell or high water, five days a week. And to really show ‘em, you’re only going to drink beer on special occasions. And on weekends, of course. And on Wednesdays. But that is it, because this is the year when you come back.

And before you know it, and before you are even remotely ready, you’re all geared up for the first group ride, and everyone is there. You’ve got the leg warmers on, the bottom edge adjusted ever so carefully above your three-quarter length socks so as to reveal your freshly shaved legs. You’ve got the arm warmers on, logos facing outward. You’ve stretched a balaclava underneath a ridiculously expensive helmet that you got on pro deal. You’re rocking the Peter Heater and you’re sporting a fresh pair of booties. A meticulously rolled up shell, a spare tube and a CO2 inflator, three Gu shots and a Powerbar bulge out of your rear jersey pocket, and you’ve tastefully finished off the ensemble with a pair of lobster mitt gloves. You cast a smug glance at the new guy, whose leg hair and toe clips stand in great contrast to your contemporary roadie style like an ’80s hair band at a yacht club. When the pack rolls out of the parking lot, you’re already thinking about that first town line sprint. During those first few miles, while you’re spinning your legs and boasting about how many hours you’ve spent on a trainer, you feel great, and at that very moment, you know that this is going to be the year when you come back.

A few miles out of town, the pace picks up. Social time is over. A pace line forms. Your heart rate starts to climb, but you’ll soon get into a rhythm and surely, any minute now, your pounding chest will settle down, so you’re not concerned. You’ve just got some rust to shake off, that’s all. You may be, perhaps, a tad overdressed—the lobster mitts might have been overkill—but otherwise, you’re all there. Toe-clip-leg-hair guy is taking rather hard pulls, driving the pace a bit out of your comfort zone, but that’s okay, because you know that any minute now, he’ll be off the back. He doesn’t know how to ride in a group. You do. He’s not a hard-core cyclist. You are. A few miles later, as expected, he gets blown off. As he fades away, sucking pond water, you cast a glance over your shoulder and give him your own version of “The Look,” and even though you missed your chance to win the town line sprint, it was worth it. You’ve reached the high point of the ride. Now it is time to come crashing down to earth.

Halfway into the ride, you’re close to the red zone, but you’re still there, and you fight to not get dropped on the climb before the turnaround, and you succeed. You recover on the descent, but at the bottom the pace line reforms and becomes a lot more spirited, and within three rotations you’re pedaling squares and hanging by a thread. After your next pull, you peel away and fall off the train and are left for dead. You gave it everything you’ve got, and there’s nothing left, and you’re way out on Route 12.

Disheartened, dispirited, you press on, alone. The first ride of the season has resulted in a resounding bonk. Twelve miles from town, your optimism, impetus, and enthusiasm have been replaced with anguish, desolation, and disgrace. And it is at that moment, when you’ve hit your lowest point, when aside from a flat, things couldn’t get any worse, when you notice a lonely figure in the distance: Toe clip-leg hair guy. And at that moment, to really show ’em, you resolutely declare that as far as drinking beer is concerned, Wednesdays are now out.

This Commenter Sucks

I've been writing this blog for almost two years and I'm finally I'm starting to get some comments!

"You're writing is abysmal. Can't believe you get paid to do this."

"title should be 'this writer sucks'"

.

and my personal favorite, "you suck"

Well, at least someone is tuning in regularly. I just wish I knew who it was.

Six Degrees of Ed Sullivan

I haven’t always been a retail junkie. I was once a paperboy. In fifth grade, I decided that I wanted to play the saxophone, so my parents, in an effort to instill an appreciation of expensive things, as well as enlighten me to the fact that life wasn’t the delusional joyride I had thought it was, decided that I would have to pay for the saxophone myself. The allowance I was receiving for mowing the lawn in the summer, shoveling the driveway in the winter, and doing the dishes and babysitting my little sister year round wasn’t nearly enough to cover the monthly payments for the instrument, so if I truly want to be a saxophonist who owned a saxophone, I would have to get a real job. So I did.

Not having much of a resume, the only real job that I was qualified for was as a real paperboy, with a real paper route. For four very long and formative years, I delivered newspapers early in the morning, seven days a week, 365 days a year, with my loyal dog Gonzo at my side. Somewhere during that stretch of time, I hit a homerun in Little League, kissed a girl for the first time, and paid my saxophone off. I remember sending in the last payment as vividly as I remember knocking that ball out of the park and that magical electric feeling from that first kiss.

Although my paper route taught me the value of a strong work ethic, it was a miserable experience. Even now, 25 years later, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, thinking that in only a few short hours, I will have to crawl out of bed, get dressed, and head out into the freezing cold darkness, with a heavy sack full of newspapers hanging from my shoulder. It was also an extremely lonely experience. With the exception of Mrs. Seaf, an elderly lady who lived alone and was the last stop on my route, and who was a high school classmate of Ed Sullivan, and had the yearbook to prove it, I had no one to talk to. But Mrs. Seaf, or “Seafy,” as she preferred to be called, loved to talk to me. She also loved to talk to her parakeet, “Kitty,” but I didn’t mind, because she fed me all the Oreo cookies I could eat. Each morning, while I delivered the world to the doorstep of the people, I looked forward to those Oreo cookies, every step of the way. Mrs. Seaf became a great pal of mine, but as far as developing a working relationship with a fellow coworker who wasn’t a dog, that was something I would have to wait years to do.

These days, those lonely days of slinging newspapers are over. I now work at a bike shop, and I sling everything from bicycles to spoke nipples. Instead of trudging from door to door one hour each day, I bounce from customer to customer eight hours each day. And instead of looking forward to a plate of cookies served up by Mrs. Seaf, I look forward to a cold pint of beer served up by a guy named Brutus.

And contrary to those lonely days as a paperboy, I now know all about relationships with fellow coworkers. Fortunately, I like the people I work with. In fact, many of my fellow coworkers are among my best friends. We get along well, and we have a lot more in common than the inherent need for a paycheck. We’re all active folks, we’re all English majors, or might as well be, and we’re all broke. But above all, the most common characteristic that truly binds us is a profound and unwavering love of beer. In fact, the entire outdoor industry shares this affection.

Nowhere is this love of malt and hops more apparent than at a trade show, where vendors use free beer to draw dealers to their booths. Throngs of dealers come from all directions towards the keg, like zombies caught in a tractor beam. It is impossible to resist, and without fail, a few beers later, you’re stuck listening to a sales rep, pretending to act interested in a product that you will never sell. Speaking of trade shows, next week I am going to a trade show in Providence, RI. We’ll see if I can resist those seductive kegs while I’m there. Maybe I should bring some Oreo cookies.

This Beer Sucks

I am not one who is easily insulted. Pick on me because I have may have a zit the size of a wasabi pea on my nose and I won't be insulted. Remark that my posture is worse that Kurt Cobain's and I'll say, you're right, no offense taken. Remind me that I adore breasts and I'll ask, who doesn't?

But despite my resiliance to petty put downs, an insult was recently hurled at me that penetrated my thick skin like a flying shard from a broken heart of glass. While away on a two night business trip in Providence, RI, I was served a pint of IPA at a prominent and well established brew pub that was so unacceptable, I had no choice but to think that the server had mistaken me for some kind of Budweiser-loving die hard curious to know what a micro-brew tastes like and would never know that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. Not that there's anything wrong with Budweiser-loving die hards.

I was so insulted by being served a pint of apple-cider-looking, bad-home-brew tasting, brew-pub-business ending disgrace, that I politely sent it back and ordered water. The next night, at a different brew pub, the same thing happened, and a salty injury was added to the wound from the former night's insult.

So, at the next bar, I ordered a bottle of Budweiser, and it was delicious.

It's a Wonderful Job, Eventually

February is here, and I couldn’t be happier. Call me Grinch or Scrooge, but I vehemently disagree that Christmastime is the most wonderful time of the year. I’ve felt this way for a long time, but until this year, I wasn’t sure why.

About a week before Christmas, I had an epiphany that hit me on the head like one too many glasses of my cousin Lenny’s extra-special eggnog. My lovely fiancée and I were relaxing around our Christmas tree, which was leaning a bit to one side and aglow with old fashioned, energy sucking bulbs. Elvis’s Christmas album was playing on the turntable. With that velvety voice caressing my ears, I got to the bottom of why I always have a blue Christmas: I work in retail.

Too many of the negative aspects of Christmas—the commotion, the consumerism, the true meaning-robbing commercialism—surround me during the entire holiday season like gaudy rows of garland on a fake Christmas tree in the lobby of an insurance building. The plastic blinking star they stick on the top represents the headache I get that doesn’t quite go away until the tree gets unplugged, covered with a plastic bag, and stuffed in the corner of the office supply closet.

I am fortunate enough, however, to have Christmas day off, unlike the movie theater concession stand vendor, the shifty ski resort lifty, or the convenience store clerk in the Santa hat who has to finish making that guy’s egg sandwich before he can ring you up for a twelve-pack of beer. But simply not having to work on Christmas day doesn’t mean I’m singing “Deck the Halls” during the four-hour drive to Maine for my family Christmas party. For me to sing “Fa la la la la,” I wouldn’t have to drive back to Vermont later that night, because I wouldn’t have to be at work the next morning for the worst workday of the entire year.

I like to imagine how some folks spend the day after Christmas. I picture the happy couple, young and in love, who bought each other cross-country ski packages, skiing side by side in a meadow, while soaking up the glistening beauty of a perfect winter’s day. I see the content mom, bundled up in her brand new down jacket, taking the dog for a nice long walk. I envision the encouraged dad, his cholesterol level approaching the outer limits of healthy, determined to exercise more often this year, heading out the back door for a romp with his new pair of snowshoes that the whole family pitched in to give him.

I can conjure up these warm and fuzzy sugarplum-shaped visions, but my reality is helping the unhappy couple that bought each other cross-country ski packages and wants to exchange their ski boots because they don’t fit, or because his heel lifts a bit and her boots are not quite as comfortable as her bedroom slippers. Or the discontented mom, who loves everything about her brand new down jacket except the color, and wants to special order the one in the lighter shade of green. Or the discouraged dad, who after trudging around the back yard, would prefer a different pair of snowshoes with bindings that are a bit easier to undo. He only used them once, so he can’t imagine that we couldn’t simply take them back. After all, they are only scratched a little.

The joy of Christmas Eve has also been lost to me. That day is defined by stressed-out last-minute shoppers who don’t have time to pleasantly accept the fact that we are sold out of whatever it is they should have purchased sooner. Or who are too exasperated to understand why we won’t hang around after we close until they arrive, “in only 15 minutes or so,” so that they can “just run in and buy something real quick.” No matter how hard I try to allow the holiday spirit to overtake my petulance, under these circumstances, all I can say is, “Bah, humbug!”

So when it is all over, and the rest of the glorious winter is ahead, I am a much happier person. The craziness of the holidays gives way to the routine of our annual end-of-winter super blowout sale. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and I’m full of joy. I’m so carefree that when a customer says, “So I see that these tele skis are 40 percent off. Would you take 50 percent off?” I can actually say, “No!” with tact. I can even be persuaded to stay awhile after we close for a nice customer, unless he wants to exchange a used pair of snowshoes.