On having several “Oh. My. God.” Experiences in Seattle
The Good:Several weeks ago, my sunglasses, a great pair of Smiths fell out of my shirt pocket and the frame broke. I tried several times to glue things back together with no luck. My wife suggested that I take them back to REI where I’d bought them. Now, I’m a reasonable guy and I feel fairly realistic–so the thought of taking a five-year-old pair of sunglasses back to the store where I’d bought them, without a receipt, and requesting a refund for the full-price I’d originally paid after I had effectively broken them do to my own carelessness, seemed, well, absurd. But she persisted, just give it a try…Well, I obliged and took a trip to REI this Sunday. Now, when I die, and come back to life, my second-coming-career will undoubtedly be the returns clerk at REI. This is a person who’s job it is to essentially make everyone he or she encounters very, very happy. The line was huge, full of people with shirts that didn’t fit, flash-lights that were broken out of the box, and then me, with my five-year-old broken sunglasses. Did I mention that I’d broken them due to my own carelessness?! Well, the answer was an unequivocal yes. Fortunately I’d used my REI membership number when buying them so there was record of the purchase, and they did charge an 8% charge since I’d used a credit card to purchase the glasses, but there were no insinuating “So, tell me again, how they were broken?� or the even more predictable hysterical laughing followed by, “What have you been smoking? You want us to give you your money back? After five years? And your clumsiness???!!!�In any case, I walked out of REI that day with a brand new pair of sunglasses and newly found dedicate to spend as much disposable income a lazy, computer nerd should commit to spending at an outdoor recreation store.The Bad:So, shiny new glasses in tow, we took Chloe out for a bike-ride on the Burke-Gilman trail. She was very excited to ride in the bike trailer and was sound asleep back there after about 200 yards. Kerri and I rode on and after about 30 minutes stopped to take a break. There are a number of great places to rest on the Burke-Gilman and I’m not sure why we chose to stop where we did, but it seemed appropriate at the time.Our bike trailer is a two-seater and petty wide and I had pulled my bike over to the side of the trail to sort of get out of the way. We were at an intersection with a street and there were not a lot of people riding then. About half-way through my Odwalla bar (AKA “the best bar know to man-kind�) we hear this yelling. There were riders coming in either direction and it took me a second to figure out it was coming from an older woman on a road-bike headed towards us from the South. At first I thought she was yelling at the guy coming towards us from the other direction but eventually it became clear that we were the targets.She kept yelling “Clear the lane! Clear the lane!� Now. I work in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle and our office is only one block from two different homeless shelters and a methadone clinic so I get my fair share of the crazies everyday and I don’t even think twice about it, so my first reaction was to think, “strange to see a crazy homeless lady riding a bike all the way out here in Ravenna!� As the yelling continued she began to sound more and more lucid (relatively speaking). Finally, she was bout fifteen yards from use and just getting more and more pissed. I looked at the bike trailer that contained our dear little three-year-old sleeping silently and thought that its parking place was quite reasonable. In reality, it was probably covering about half of the bike path, but, to be fair, my bike was leaned against a freaking Yield sign, the idea of which, was to let cyclist know that cars were progressing through the following intersection without much concern for bikes and that it would be wise to not pedal through without first hitting that coaster-break to make sure you weren’t about to munched by a beamer or something. Jesus.The closer she got, the louder she got, and the more insulting her language got. As she passed us she actually said (and I swear I’m not even paraphrasing) “Fucking move. I bet your drive like that too, you fucking asshole.� Then as she passed the actual trailer (you know, the one holding our dear, sweet, sleeping three-year-old daughter who is the light of our life?) she continued, “Move this piece of shit.�Kerri had the fist, only, and probably best, response, which was, “are you serious?� followed by “have a nice ride.� and that was the extent of our involvement. I hear the French have term for the sense that you have when you think of a response to a situation after the situation has passed–that idea of “I should have said that!� Well, whatever that term is, I spent most of the remaining bike ride thinking not only of things I’d should have said, but ways in which I could inflicted physical damage to her without any repercussions. If Tony Soprano can get way with it, I should be able to as well, correct?Maybe she was having a bad day, her cat died, or she found out her Benz was going to need another $3500 in repairs which weren’t covered under her extended warranty. Maybe she was just a lonely old lady who’s only love was to ride her bicycle fast and wear her spandex with pride. I’m sure there are any number of reasons she could have used to rationalize referring to our bicycle trailer, the one that contained our dear, sweet, sleeping three-year-old daughter who is the light of our life as a “piece of shit.� But I can say to that crazy lady on the road bike passing us on the Burke-Gilman trail on Sunday afternoon that if I see you again, I will not be leaving thinking of all the things I should have said. This is not the Tour De France and you need to fucking chill out. Got it?
