September 17, 2010

My morning was fantastic!
            How much sarcasm can you muster? Think about it. Now, multiply that by 113,482 and apply it to the above statement. As it turns out, sometimes being a spastic freshman hasn’t a thing to do with having a bad day. Sometimes, bad days just find you. Granted, spastic freshman such as myself are far easier to find than others, but you get the picture.
            I’ve heard it said of many situations: “you’ve either gotta laugh or cry.” Thanks to an inspirational message I received from an unlikely source at about 5:30 this morning, I’m choosing to laugh, and thought you might like to as well. ‘Don’t cry, get back in the game.’ You might be wondering what that source was. Let’s just say a certain company has decided women could use a pep talk now and then, courtesy of their favorite feminine products…
            Anyhoodles, on with the story. I have one of those supremely awesome schedules (there’s that sarcasm again) which requires me to be on one side of campus from 8:00-9:55am, and on the other side by 9:58am. Now, I’m no track star, so I’ve got wheels. Thirty-two inch wheels. With spokes. And gears. And a very temperamental chain, but we’ll get to that in a minute. To keep my baby from being assaulted – or worse, bike-napped – I lock her up in an enclosure in one of the university’s parking garages. The gate needs a six-digit code to open. (I know what you’re thinking: it’d be way cooler to have one of those CIA optical scanners. Trust me, I’m with you there.) Should be simple, right? Type in the numbers, and open sesame! Yeah…not so much. So, I go to the garage attendant’s station and explain my predicament. The response?
            “You need your bike now?” …No, of course not. I’m just here at 7:04am because I can’t go more than fourteen hours without hearing the beep the little keys make. It’s music, really it is. So she gives her partner a buzz on the walkie, I thank her, and I wait. And wait. The guy finally arrives about ten minutes later, opens the gate for me, and tells me he deactivated my locker code yesterday. He doesn’t remember why. I hide my frustration, wish him a good day, and hop on my bike, thinking I might still make it to watch the ROTC’s morning drills before my class. Except I hear this awful grinding and almost enjoy an asphalt breakfast because my bike chain has come completely off the track and lodged itself between the gears and the spokes. Five minutes later, I’ve got a functional ride. Trouble is, I’ve also got a pair of hands blacker with grease than a mechanic who hasn’t seen soap in eighteen years.
             Feeling like a BP oil spill casualty, I ride four blocks to the nearest building whose restroom location I’m sure of. Turns out, that restroom is being cleaned. I politely hold up my hands and beg the maintenance woman entrance. No dice. I’ve got to go two floors up and down the hall. It’s a bit of a hike and, let me tell you, people stare. I consider throwing out a casual explanation, but by this point I’ve given up on blending in. As I’m lathering my eighth handful of soap, I chuckle to myself. It’s time to write.