storytime haiku
Yesterday, Dave and Anna and I went out on their boat for some sun and water and generally just to complain about the sunny weather, and how terrible life is, and why would we even hang out together if we clearly don’t get along, you know what I mean?
The plan was to go out on the boat, and when it was time, they’d drop me off at the dock and I’d ride home from there. Good plan. Dave and Anna live east of my place and there’s both Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish between us as the crow flies. The Burke-Gilman bike trail gets me out there in a safe fashion, away from cars, and so I usually go to/from their place that way, which is north around the lakes. However, since the dock was on the south end of Lake Sammamish, I thought I’d try a new, more direct route home. This one would take me along I-90 and pretty much directly west over Mercer Island and into downtown Seattle, where I’d take a right and head north to home. Good plan.
I forgot to eat lunch, so my going was kind of slow. I felt good though, because I’d been along that stretch of road before and I knew where I was generally going even if I’d never done this particular route before. And sure enough, I took a wrong turn and ended up dropping a couple hundred feet down to the lake again. That was when I realized the extent of my “Ooops…didn’t eat lunch today”, because climbing back up to I-90 was an exercise in Cuss Word Management. I wanted to cuss myself out for taking a wrong turn, but I was huffing and puffing up the hill so badly that I couldn’t really do it properly. Needless to say, when I did finally make it to the top, I found a convenience store and bought some water and ate my sandwich. That made all the difference in the world. Well, that and the fact that the next couple of miles were downhill. Funny how much faster you go when it’s down.
When I got to the I-90/I-405 interchange, I knew I needed to find the bike path again, but I didn’t know exactly where it was, so I called a friend for directions, and lo and behold, I was less than a block from the entrance, so off I went. Except that I’d run over a staple and the rear tire had quickly and silently deflated while I was on the phone with my navigator. Well, that’s awesome! So I took the next logical step which was to fondly remember where my spare tubes and patch kit and pump were, which is to say that they were not on my person.
Luckily I was also a block from a busstop, so I caught the next bus back to Seattle. The whole endeavour put me in a serene and reflective mood, and so I cemented my thoughts in the form of a haiku. Please to enjoy:
wrong turn and flat tire
the unknown road holds dangers
fuck, i hate the bus
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