Bicycle Tune-Up

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Located in New Haven, CT

Posted on April 23rd 2012

Description Let's be honest with ourselves. You probably got a bike because it seemed really cool and environmentally-friendly at the moment. Then you went out for your first ride, you got instantly labeled as an "idealist utopian hippie-socialist" and you put the bike away in shame, out of sight like so many other broken dreams of a better world (Zune, anyone?). Now, months later, it's unseasonably warm and you've noticed all these curious, two-wheeled vessels effortlessly shuttling their smiling riders around the city, as if floating ona stream of air. A single memory of your past and the awesome potential of your future converges in a bright flash. You imagine riding through town on a rainbow of kitten whiskers, your wheels are spinning, shimmering in the warm summer light. Fresh vegetables teem from your bicycle, overflowing the front and rear baskets, spilling onto the verdant meadows spreading out below you. Organic grape tomatoes and local heirloom asparagus shoots rain down onto the smiling people below you, who thank you and offer you babies to kiss. "May you ride like this forever," the people cry. Even the birds are singing your song (curiously it sounds exactly like Baha Men's "Who let the Dog's Out"). You imagine the endless possibilities of your life with a bike and what it might mean for your chances of having sex (is there a positive or negative correlation, you wonder). So many questions! But, the vision is gone before you can make sense of it. The images leave you as quickly as the little white man on the walk signal, which just moments before had allowed you to safely jot into the middle of Elm Street. Now, with the visions gone, and your pedestrian right-of-way reclaimed by the critical mass of automobiles bearing down on you, you're frozen in the middle of the intersection with a Yale bus heading directly toward you - the driver is making his third and final attempt to break the sound barrier. You dive out of the way of the oncoming bus, and curse those electronic traffic-signal devices of this hastily designed modern city. Will you ever find peace, you wonder? Disheveled and tired, you trudge home looking for solace in a can of PBR and an old VHS tape of Family Ties episodes. This eases the pain for a while. Young Alex Keaton's unbending conservative outlook brings meaning back to your melancholy existence. And later that night, after spending hours confiding in young Michael J. Fox, your significant other pleads with you to keep quiet and to clean up after yourself. A final request is made to take down your Justin Bieber life-size cutout that stands in front of your closet. You submit to these requests, but not out of love or compassion, and definitely not because you have any self-decency remaining, but because you're sure there are treasures in that closet, treasures even brighter than Bieber's glimmering smile. He winks in approval. As you toss Bieber into the pile labeled "burn," you uncover the bicycle you had abandoned last fall, to your immediate satisfaction. "I told you," feels like the appropriate exclamation, but then "Just the Two of Us" by Bill Withers starts playing on WYBC and a wave of excitement rushes over you. You dust off the glitter and silly string and head for the door. You hop onto your old bike and head straight for the salt-water taffy shop to chill with all the other cool bike people, but something just doesn't feel right. These aren't the visions you had imagined. This is not your beautiful life! Instead, you're wondering what the clickity-clack coming from the rear wheel is, and why there are various levers protruding from the handlebars. And, more importantly, where did this blood and tequila come from, and whose merkin is this?! If you accept this gift, I will make your vision become reality (more or less).