Day 281
There is nothing like sleeping in and having tons of meat for breakfast. With a belly full of meat I met my friend at the used bike shop on campus. She is one of those people who has her bikes shipped to where she is in the world. I take this quality as knowing about bikes. We got into the shop and to the aisle of bikes I can sort of afford. I have been into the bike shop before and have found them friendly. Today they were pretty much ignoring us.
We went into the repair part of the shop and we saw a guy adjusting wheels and asked him if he could help us. He said that he didn't work there and then pointed to a girl who was fixing a bike and stated loud enough for her to hear, "But (name here) does and she's very helpful and she's super cute." We asked her about taking out a bike and we did after I gave her my driver's license. I rode around a little after my friend made me conquer my fear of getting on the bike. Okay, so I haven't had a bike in years and the one I did have was heavy and hard to ride and the only time I remember riding it was when I was super smashed, even then I only remember the fact that I did ride it, now what it felt like to ride. Anyway, my friend and I were deciding on what we thought about the bike when a man with an extremely hairy chest and gardening gloves came over to us and started giving his opinion about the price of the bike and how he has access to tons of bikes and blah, blah bla--until, I got us away from him.
After bringing the bike back inside my friend said that I should maybe try to talk them down a little bit. I told her I am horrible at talking people down. Finally I decided it was worth a try so I tried the super nice approach. "You know I really like the bike but, I was kind of wondering if we could go any lower than the price on the tag because I--" And before I could get any further the girl barked at me, "We are a non-profit we don't do haggling. The price is on the ticket." I walked out of there in a daze wondering why she reacted like she had. Tonight I realized that in her eyes I had become the bargain customer. These are the types of people that used to come into the restaurant only on buy one get one free coupons and never tip. I don't want to be that type of person again, but how do you tell someone, "I am not a bargain customer normally" and make it sound real?
After the bike fiasco I had to go to work. I was so excited to share with my co-workers my odd experience at the bike shop to see what they would say about it. Sometimes little stories like, "So, I went to buy a bike today..." really liven up the Post Office workplace. Turns out I didn't need my little story to liven things up as my boss was degrading her least favorite employee for giving sub-par customer service and making a customer cry. Apparently, my presence just made her berate her louder with a smile on her face. I tried to just stand there cleaning out my backpack. I guess I could've moved to the back, but really, I wanted to see the fight. "Don't you want to throw in your two cents?" the boss lady asked me. "Umm, yeah well, I wasn't here when it happened so..." The fight then took a more calm approach and fizzled out. But damn if only I had been there earlier, I would've liked to have seen my co-worker make a customer cry.
Customer of the Day: The guy who after hearing me and my favorite co-worker swap, "I hate you's" and "Are you still talking to me's," said, "Wow, I need to come to the Post Office more often." Well, I guess it was a tie between him and the ancient man who took 23 minutes to buy stamps. He was inaudible, but adorable and wearing a bike helmet. I said to my co-worker about him, "Okay, so if he can ride a bike there is certainly no reason we shouldn't be on them." To which she responded, "Maybe he's not riding a bike..."
After work I went over and paid the full price of the bike despite my friend telling me of the horrid bike accident she was in awhile back where she would've had a head injury from had she not had an afro at the time. Anyway, the salesgirl was much more pleasant with me and I rode the bike home, helmetless and afro-less. After supper I took it out again. That time I rode up a hill. At first I thought it wouldn't be a big deal as it was a slow and sloping hill. By the halfway mark I thought either my lungs or legs were gonna give out and I was traveling at a speed that was slower than walking. I did make it up the hill though and around the neighborhood a few loops. When I got home I think I experienced that natural high people get from exercising, it pretty much felt like when you smoke a cigarette after having not smoked one for a long time, odd considering that those actions are the opposites of each other but have the same aftermath. Well the same except when you smoke a cigarette your ass doesn't hurt so bad you have to lie down.
Tonight I was a partner in crime to a robbery of flowers. A neighbor of mine showed up at my door with a drink and said, "You have to try this." Of course, I did (thank God it wasn't Kool-Aid...) and then when she said, "Come on let's go get some flowers." I also agreed. On the walk over to the University garden the plan was to act casual and pick the ones that were not in the light. Obviously, we weren't yet aware that the garden was brimming with graduates as it was a graduation evening. My co-criminal decided to go along with it anyhow. The only thing was, we were the only people there who A. Weren't Chinese and B. Weren't wearing giant graduation robes. Being undercover was much harder than we had originally thought. I decided that the code word for the robed people was, pickles. So when she kept leaning into rose bushes and trying to find buds worth picking I was shouting, "Pickles! Pickles!" And if that didn't make us obvious enough we tried to make an escape down a secret pathway only for us to be discovered by a cleaning crew man.
On the way home we decided to cut through a forest pathway. As soon as we got in the forest-y area in the beautiful moonlight I saw a black and white blur moving. "Skunk! I'm outta here!" I started back up the path and my friend called me a baby and then took off down the path saying, "Come on, let's see how close we can get to it!" I stumbled after her to see if she'd actually do it, she chickened out. We kept walking and she taught me a new word, slapper. Apparently, it is another word for whore.
When we finally got home with our three stolen flowers we decided that we should probably scare someone we knew by throwing shit at their windows. I grabbed a couple pinecones and we chucked them at our friend's window who said she could hear us and knew what we were up to. Disappointed we stumbled back inside and I took my friend to see the room in my rez that I suspect people view porn in. While in the room we discovered a remote that could possibly work with my TV so we took it. (it was a match, but so disgusting I threw it away). After that she took me to her room and made me promise before entering not to tell anyone what I was about to see. So, I won't tell, but I will say it was cute and not a corpse...So, all in all it was a pretty exciting evening, when I could've just went out and drank beer I was a participant in debauchery. Not bad.
Tip of the Day: If the noodles look like earthworms, don't eat them.
-Canadian Castaway
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