A Twist of Fate
Long ago, in a far away land…
Okay, it was a little while back, in the Bluff. I finally got seals in the forks I bought months ago and swapped them with the ones that should have been retired way before then. I was tickled.
Even the weather celebrated by becoming nearly 90°F. without letting even one cooling puff of 40 mph wind enter the metal shed wherein I perform bike maintenance. The forks went on without a hitch but the, usually self-aligning, front wheel became a problem. It spun freely with the bike on the lift, but road testing revealed my shortcomings as a wheel aligner. I had a date to be in the wind the following afternoon and was beginning to regret not following my policy of never turning a wrench during the week before a ride.
Life’s funny that way.
Long ago, in a far away land…
Okay, it was a little while back, in the Bluff. I finally got seals in the forks I bought months ago and swapped them with the ones that should have been retired way before then. I was tickled.
Even the weather celebrated by becoming nearly 90°F. without letting even one cooling puff of 40 mph wind enter the metal shed wherein I perform bike maintenance. The forks went on without a hitch but the, usually self-aligning, front wheel became a problem. It spun freely with the bike on the lift, but road testing revealed my shortcomings as a wheel aligner. I had a date to be in the wind the following afternoon and was beginning to regret not following my policy of never turning a wrench during the week before a ride.
On
my return from what I’d decided was my last test ride of the night, I
violated another policy of mine and pulled up to the gas pump at the poorly operated
Stripes convenience store on the corner. I was
confident that, come morning, a fresh run at aligning the wheel would
meet with success so I might as well go ahead and fuel up.
After paying with my credit card, the message “Clerk has receipt” flashed on the little screen. Having to go inside sure takes the convenience out of pay at the pump, but there were two clerks and only one customer in the store, and only one other vehicle in the fuel bays, so I found my “happy place” and went in to get my receipt.
Of course, the woman behind the sales counter couldn’t figure out which pump had just been used and asked for the pump number. Well, I didn’t notice the pump number so I told her, “the one where the motorcycle is”.
“What motorcycle?”
After a couple of futile, and increasingly aggravating, attempts to point out a large, bright yellow motorcycle in an empty lot, I told her that it was the only damned vehicle out there.
That was the wrong thing to say. She found the use of profanity
(by someone other than herself) mightily offensive, her moral indignation instantly transcending the issue of me not having a record of the transaction I’d just completed. It seems she has as strong an aversion to “cussin’” as she does to work and is having none of it in “her” store.
Happy place abandoned, I told her that the problem wasn’t my “cussin’”, the problem was that there was no damn paper in the printer and if the damn thing operated properly I wouldn’t have been in the damn store to begin with.
That’s when the male clerk quit flirting with the MILF at the sales counter, not to help me get a receipt and be on my way, but to further harangue me about the manner in which I expressed my exasperation with their lackadaisical attitude toward customer service (yeah, like that kind of heroics was going to get him laid).
After he threatened to call the cops, and after I asked why didn’t he just grow a pair and come on around the sales counter, but before I told the son of a bitch he’s a “son of a bitch’, I was warned to never darken their door again.
During the bad old years, when I drank heavily, only a single time was I ever warned to “pipe down or I’m gonna havta astya ta leave”.
Of course, the woman behind the sales counter couldn’t figure out which pump had just been used and asked for the pump number. Well, I didn’t notice the pump number so I told her, “the one where the motorcycle is”.
“What motorcycle?”
After a couple of futile, and increasingly aggravating, attempts to point out a large, bright yellow motorcycle in an empty lot, I told her that it was the only damned vehicle out there.
That was the wrong thing to say. She found the use of profanity
(by someone other than herself) mightily offensive, her moral indignation instantly transcending the issue of me not having a record of the transaction I’d just completed. It seems she has as strong an aversion to “cussin’” as she does to work and is having none of it in “her” store.
Happy place abandoned, I told her that the problem wasn’t my “cussin’”, the problem was that there was no damn paper in the printer and if the damn thing operated properly I wouldn’t have been in the damn store to begin with.
That’s when the male clerk quit flirting with the MILF at the sales counter, not to help me get a receipt and be on my way, but to further harangue me about the manner in which I expressed my exasperation with their lackadaisical attitude toward customer service (yeah, like that kind of heroics was going to get him laid).
After he threatened to call the cops, and after I asked why didn’t he just grow a pair and come on around the sales counter, but before I told the son of a bitch he’s a “son of a bitch’, I was warned to never darken their door again.
During the bad old years, when I drank heavily, only a single time was I ever warned to “pipe down or I’m gonna havta astya ta leave”.
I was never kicked out of a honky tonk.
Now, after a quarter century without a single drop of liquor, I ‘m permanently banned from the Seven-11.
Life’s funny that way.
