Monday, June 25, 2007

Sunday "Recovery" ride

I don't mean "recovery" in the 'spin easy for an hour or so' sense of the word. I mean it more in the 12 step way. Wow, we were up late on Saturday! We went over to the brother-in-law's bar, "Flashback's" for the weekly freak show. Don't get me wrong - we're a part of the show. We participated until close.

Because of my brand new handy-dandy breathalyzer, I drove home from the bar with confidence that I probably should have brought the breathalyzer with me. In my defense, though - The instructions clearly state that this device should NOT be used to determine whether or not you should drive. Uhh ... Ok - but that's kind of why I bought it.

So I'm on my 'recovery' ride Sunday morning and stop at Crane Coffee for a recovery mocha white chocolate blah blah blah something something coffee (I get the tall, which is coffee-speak for "small"). There's also 'grande' and 'mondo' or something, which I'm pretty sure are coffee-speak for 'medium' and 'large' respectively.

Ok so it was pretty good hot cocoa. I sit outdoors in the beautiful morning weather and enjoy my obvious biking superiority over the other bike clods there, while at the same time feeling a bit self-conscious in my fancy lycra getup. Luckily nobody with shorn gams appeared or I would have had to join the clod group. It's all relative.

Anyway, While I'm sitting there at the last available outdoor table, Mr and Mrs Hippie pedal up. Mr Hippie has his Bell-met on backwards!!! Yes! I haven't seen that since the last time I was on Ragbrai. Thank you awesome and wonderful lord of hosts for bestowing this vision upon me.

So now I have this internal conflict. Tell him?
Which would be more fun? Seeing the dork's reaction, or leaving well enough alone. Then I remembered my motto. The 4 letter word that directs my every action. WWJD. The good lord Jesus would not be selfish. And it would surely be selfish for me to deny all of my fellow snobs a good chuckle. I left it as it was.

So now he's sitting at the bike rack, waiting for a table to open up, pretending to be casually reading his paper. But to me it looks like he's horribly disfigured, because I can only see the top of his helmet, twisted halfway around, looking straight up, I start snickering and he shoots me a look like "I have eyes in the back of my head, buddy," which scares me. So I cool it a little.

Well, I eventually finish my drink and bite my lip so I don't start laughing when he gives me the international "you leaving?" point and look.

I give him the international "yes" nod and present the table to him with a smooth sweeping arm motion, and approach my bike (waddling in my cool bike-snob shoes).

Walking over to the rack, I'm proud of myself. I didn't selfishly help one person but through my total lack of action, brought joy to potentially dozens. Surely others have witnessed the back of this finely crafted headgear approaching and exercised the same restraint. I'm part of a wonderful brotherhood.

I personally believe that the Lord rewards such selflessness. I nearly wept with thankfulness as I approached my bike and noticed that "Backward helmet man's" front wheel was held to the fork by a completely tightened, open quick release.

Now that could actually be dangerous. Do you think I told him?

WWJD?

Praise be.

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