A Funny Story

 

Haven’t talked much about the daily adventure to the Tummy Temple just because it has been just that. The few masked faces are searching for their colas and chips while trying to stay the safe distance from one another and get out of the contamination area.

Other than walking the distance from end to end for exercise dodging the poor nurses pushing the elderly as they choose their recipe ingredients to the poor fella who has to call home to read the label of the olive oil before selection, I stop at my regular locations and grab my regular items and put them in my regular cart and head over to the regular scan check-out line.

Without purchasing alcohol I don’t need a blue apron to use their magic card to scan me through the TSA. I still try to mumble some words to them through my cowboy outfit, and then I’m off.

It was a clear day, a bit chilly with a few gust of wind. I pulled up to my regular parking space (the stop sign at the Southside of the Tummy Temple), take off my gloves and helmet, lock to the pole my u-lock, grab my bag and pull up my mask and I’m ready to make a run for grub.

So as I left the door back into the fresh air, my pony (sometimes called a bicycle) was laying on the sidewalk. This happens in the fall and spring when there is a gust of wind over the parking lot and the bike topples. Normally a bike, that is just thin pipes and spoke wheels, wouldn’t catch the breeze, but I carry saddlebags that act like sails. Since the frame is locked up, it just slowly slides down to the sidewalk.

As I push my cart to a stop, a woman walks up and asks if that is my bike? She looks at the fallen pony as if it had died.

“Yes” I reply.

Then I defined the situation without a lengthy description.

“Sometimes he gets tired and lies down.”

She laughed and suggested I had the right attitude for she thought someone had knocked over the bike.

The morale of the story: I didn’t want her to stop and talk. I don’t know where that line came from but it seemed to work. No harm done.

As I packed my bags it bothered me that she immediately thought someone had meant to damage to my unprotected vehicle. It is just the way people view the world.

I rode home, enjoying the sunshine with my load of goodies for the forest family and forgot about the conversation.

Tomorrow will be another day.