A Smashing Start to a Great Day

All week long I planned to go to Delft on the weekend, so early Saturday morning I was up and trying to get myself together; and by 10:00 I left my apartment. I spent the next thirty minutes trying to untangle my bike from the ones on either side of it. I cannot remember being that frustrated since I’ve been here (and that includes the cultural rudeness that manifests itself in curt comments, people blocking my way, and people jumping the line—oh wait, what am I saying? There are no lines.) Today took the cake.

The "bike room"

I went to the “bike room” only to find that my bicycle, which I had locked and placed on the rack provided, had been toppled by the bike to the left. All that meant that my bike was jammed against the bike to the right, and much to my concern, one of the pedals of the offending bike was caught in the spokes of the front wheel of my bike. Got all that? My bike was sandwiched and firmly attached to the other bikes. In fact, the three bikes were so jammed together that I couldn’t reach the chain I use to lock my bike and I couldn’t easily get to the pedal jammed in my wheel. I leaned over as far as I could and grabbed the pedal hoping to force it back the way it came.

They get a little "tangled" up

All three bikes shifted under my weight. I knew my index finger was caught. Because I was leaning too far forward and because the tip of my finger was being crushed, I couldn’t alleviate the pressure. Perhaps the white light flashing across my brain allowed me to fall backwards while tearing at all three bikes with my left hand. All four of us tumbled backwards and my finger was released. The combination of adrenalin and renewed blood flow made me want to kick the daylights out of the closest thing to me. Instead I sat on the floor examining my poor finger.

Maybe I'll keep my bike up here from now on!

Honest to goodness, civility seems so simple to me. Why do we insist on jamming the bikes into the rack? What do they say about treating others the way we want to be treated? I guess that’s why, after a left-handed solution to the jammed pedal, I placed the other two bikes back in the rack and rode off.