Biking the Storm Out
This morning saw the Miami premiere of the our father's newly reunited waterproof rainsuit, as I had to bike to school to teach despite the fact that it was been rather intently storming since yesterday evening. It's actually kind of funny - I went through a long phase of appropriating items of my father's clothing as soon as got to be about his height, up until this past Winter break, when Dad reminded me to please not take any of his socks. I always thought I was doing both of us a favor - I get shirts, socks, shoes, waterproof pants, he gets new socks and new shoes, etc. Treat himself. Everyone wins.
So at some point in the last year or so, Dad misplaced his goldenrod waterproof jacket and, assuming that I had taken it, bought himself a nice new blue one (a much better color, in the end). I had appropriated the pants of the rain suit back in '03, so it was a reasonable thought on his part, I suppose, to think that I had taken the jacket as well at some point between Portland, Berlin, or Miami. But I hadn't. When I was home for the holidays, it rained one day when we were going to go to the liquor store together, and Dad put on his new blue jacket. Looking for a jacket for myself, I came upon the old weird-yellow one. Dad seemed surprised to see it. But it's mine now, and let me just say that I look awesome when dressed up in a rain suit.
I was biking on the hybrid rather than the road bike since it seems like the more likely rain bike, and thought to myself about how it was nice that I had stopped getting flat tires all the time. Also, I had meant to mention here on the blog for a while now that, since I had been getting so many flats, I stopped being particularly careful about replacinig the tires (in terms of making sure the tread is facing the correct direction on the tire). In fact, the last time I changed my front tire, back just after Thanksgiving, I was so convinced that it was just going to pop again that I didn't bother to fix my tire-change when I noticed I had but the tire on backwards.
Of course, that was the tube that didn't pop, so since then I've been riding on a bike (when I ride the hybrid) with its front wheel on backwards. I was watching the water sluicing off the tire this morning, and trying to convince myself that by having the tire on backwards, I was launching the water forward, rather than backwards, thereby protecting myself from so much nasty road spray. That watching/convincing reminded me that I still hadn't actually blogged about my backwards tire.
Thinking about blogging about the tire made me think that I should make sure to knock on wood or whatever in order to not jinx myself. Nothing will make tires pop like blogging about them, according to common superstitions. I then thought to myself, wow, how would I react if I did finally blog about my tire and then it popped? Would I suddenly become superstitious? Not likely. I would be aware of the interest of the coincidence, but certainly wouldn't assign any meaning to it. Too agnostic for that sort of nonsense.
Well, I went in to my class, and afterwards, when I went to bike home, lo and behold, my front tire was flat! So I didn't even have a chance to jinx my tire by blogging about it! Just thinking about blogging about it was enough to jinx it! Crazy!
But, of course, I probably wouldn't have ever gotten around to blogging about the tire if it hadn't popped this morning (let's face it, it's just not that interesting). So the only thing I can think to explain this is that somehow the jinx that's about to occur when I post this post is somehow going to travel back in time and jinx my tire before the jinxing has even happened! And there's nothing I can do to stop it! I have no choice but to publish this post...
So at some point in the last year or so, Dad misplaced his goldenrod waterproof jacket and, assuming that I had taken it, bought himself a nice new blue one (a much better color, in the end). I had appropriated the pants of the rain suit back in '03, so it was a reasonable thought on his part, I suppose, to think that I had taken the jacket as well at some point between Portland, Berlin, or Miami. But I hadn't. When I was home for the holidays, it rained one day when we were going to go to the liquor store together, and Dad put on his new blue jacket. Looking for a jacket for myself, I came upon the old weird-yellow one. Dad seemed surprised to see it. But it's mine now, and let me just say that I look awesome when dressed up in a rain suit.
I was biking on the hybrid rather than the road bike since it seems like the more likely rain bike, and thought to myself about how it was nice that I had stopped getting flat tires all the time. Also, I had meant to mention here on the blog for a while now that, since I had been getting so many flats, I stopped being particularly careful about replacinig the tires (in terms of making sure the tread is facing the correct direction on the tire). In fact, the last time I changed my front tire, back just after Thanksgiving, I was so convinced that it was just going to pop again that I didn't bother to fix my tire-change when I noticed I had but the tire on backwards.
Of course, that was the tube that didn't pop, so since then I've been riding on a bike (when I ride the hybrid) with its front wheel on backwards. I was watching the water sluicing off the tire this morning, and trying to convince myself that by having the tire on backwards, I was launching the water forward, rather than backwards, thereby protecting myself from so much nasty road spray. That watching/convincing reminded me that I still hadn't actually blogged about my backwards tire.
Thinking about blogging about the tire made me think that I should make sure to knock on wood or whatever in order to not jinx myself. Nothing will make tires pop like blogging about them, according to common superstitions. I then thought to myself, wow, how would I react if I did finally blog about my tire and then it popped? Would I suddenly become superstitious? Not likely. I would be aware of the interest of the coincidence, but certainly wouldn't assign any meaning to it. Too agnostic for that sort of nonsense.
Well, I went in to my class, and afterwards, when I went to bike home, lo and behold, my front tire was flat! So I didn't even have a chance to jinx my tire by blogging about it! Just thinking about blogging about it was enough to jinx it! Crazy!
But, of course, I probably wouldn't have ever gotten around to blogging about the tire if it hadn't popped this morning (let's face it, it's just not that interesting). So the only thing I can think to explain this is that somehow the jinx that's about to occur when I post this post is somehow going to travel back in time and jinx my tire before the jinxing has even happened! And there's nothing I can do to stop it! I have no choice but to publish this post...
2 Comments:
Did you think that it may have been a disgruntled student of yours who let the air out of your tire? Or someone in the front seat of the car who loved American Beauty?
Being the unnecessarily paranoid person that I am, of course my first thought was that it was a student who took the air out of my tires (just like their refusal to do homework or participate actively in class takes the wind out of my sails as a teacher). But I tried to shove that thought away. It really was fate, karma, etc. that popped that tire, as I will explain in a fresh post.
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