Confessions of a Commuter

[VermilionX]

my shifting to 2nd has a little delay... im sure it's bec i have to go through neutral. i need to practice using more force when upshifting to 2nd.

but after i get to 2nd, my shifting is fast.

[dieziege]

Not...motorcycle puberty! Next thing you know, your bike's voice will start breaking and you'll find yourself above loud pipes thinking you like the taste of chicken strips. On the other hand it is another 5 years of spontanious errections...

[Sev]

Fast shifting is just about practise. If you get good at it, you can do everything at once. Clutch in, throttle off, pull up, rev up, clutch out all in one smooth motion. Just practise practise practise.

I know you can do it.

[KarateChick]

Friday
Miles: 6,724
Mood:

Confession #19- I have had a revelation....

... and your life is forever changed, new doors have opened that you never knew existed.

Oh! That's what the bike is for! Now this does not affect my commuting one bit, but it is very likely that someday in the near future I will be experimenting on an empty, twisty road. Perhaps, someday, soon....

Ahhh finally CNF....after 30 days into your blog and about 1,000 miles later, you've been bitten by the m-cycling bug...!

Haha! Keep on posting!

[CNF2002]

Monday
Miles: 6,749
Mood:

Confession #20- I think McDonald's employees are overpaid.

There was a dog today in a Ford F-250. The back window of the crewcab was rolled down and it was barking incessantly at me as I was putting along on the road. Normally this doesn't bother me, a glance and a wave to the dog and it usually either continues barking or stops and start panting. Either way the dog is having a good time and, lets face it, looks cute even when it's trying to be angry.

This dog was not cute. Instead of becoming happy, as soon as I glanced at the dog it looked like it wanted to eat the flesh off my bones. It started hopping up and down in the seat and, before long, was hanging half of its body out the window, dangling precariously on the narrow ledge as it attempted to snag my arm in its tiny little jaws.

I moved forward a bit and glanced at the driver. She was oblivious to what was going on. I blipped my horn and she just gave me a nasty look before returning to her zombie-like stare at the road ahead. The dog was still hanging out of the window.

So I moved ahead of her, not wanting to be attacked nor wanting to run over the poor undisciplined mutt with my bike should he decide to take a bounding leap for my throat. At some point the dog returned to the interior of the vehicle...but I was sad. At some point, certainly, the dog will die due to the neglect of its incompetent owner.

But incompetence isn't just resigned to truck-driving-dog-lovers. Saturday evening I was riding to a weekend job and decided, spur-of-the-moment, that I had a craving for some french fries. I have sufficient space in my bike luggage to cater for 20, so I stopped into a McDonalds.

There was a woman who ran in front of me in the door holding a salad. Okay.

I get to the register and that's when the entertainment began. She was furious, but unfortunately this woman was not entirely assimilated, obviously, into the American culture. Or at least, she managed to make money without learning our language. Because despite her rage, the only words she was capable of speaking in english were "bad...salad...bacon...bad no...REFUND!"

One would assume that the first word anyone learns in the English language as a new citizen (of which I had doubts she was) is the word "refund". Now at first I wanted to try to explain to her that she was at McDonalds. The food is cheap, nasty, and old. If you want a good salad, go to the salad bar at a local grocery store. These McDonalds salads are nothing more than to bring in families who have one health-nut that refuses to go unless they have a health option. They don't care about their salads, they don't make money off them and they have a long shelf time. It is made in Iowa, shipped across the country by truck, lands in the local storeroom 2 weeks later and then sits in a chilled metal shelf all day. And you wonder why it tastes gross...hmmm.

By the end of it all however, I felt sorry for this woman. She just wanted her dollar refunded. The cashier couldn't do it (correction, the 35 year old adult cashier could not do it). She called another employee, the two of them couldn't do it, they called a third. 5 minutes later there were 3 cashiers and a manager standing around the cash register trying to figure out how to make it give a refund.

Finally the original cashier broke off and said "Can I help you?" which, by her tone of voice, she may as well have said "Are you still here?!?"

I ordered a fries and a small coke. This too obviously annoyed her. I paid my due and went to fill my coke. She went to go gab with a fellow employee (she was quite obviously complaining about the refund customer). There were no small lids stocked (little of anything was stocked). I go back to the register in search of a lid. Here is what happened:

Me: "Excuse me ma'am," she turns and looks at me, "could I please have a small lid? You're out."

Her: Points to obviously empty condiment station "Lids are over there." Turns her back to me to continue talking to other employee.

Me: "Sorry you're out of small lids. Can I get a small lid please?"

Her: "Medium lids fit small cups, over there." Points then turns away again.

Me: "Excuse me, there are no lids, can I get a lid please?" In a loud and annoyed tone. This got her moving, and she took the 3 seconds to grab a lid from under the counter and hand it to me.

I've now been in the place 10 minutes and I've managed to wrestle a coke and a box of fries (which takes 5 seconds to shovel into the box) out of these people. Fast friendly service my eye! Whatever these people are making, it's too much.

When I left, they were still trying to figure out how to give the lady a refund.

[NorthernPete]

Their McFood Mcsucks... I want to speak to the McManager.

[VermilionX]

In-N-Out is the best!

[camthepyro]

I don't like McDonalds, the only thing I'll eat are the chicken selects, and their fries are usually old and soggy, not crisp and crunchy. I've worked fast food at Arby's, and customers can be a "dog" when they're rude, but on the flip-side, cashiers can be a "dog" too. But I was always polite with everyone, no matter how much I wanted to punch them.

[skoebl]

But I was always polite with everyone, no matter how much I wanted to punch them.

I worked at a Burger King for about a year. I really really really wanted someone to get so annoyed at me that THEY threw a punch...that way I could at least get my frustration out and not go to jail

But, I guess that probably won't ever happen for me

[CNF2002]

Thursday
Miles: 6,796
Mood:

Confession #21- I am an inspiration to other commuters.

Is it Friday yet? It feels like Friday.

Lately I've noticed a few more motorcycles on both my morning and evening commute. There are a couple in fact that I see almost daily now. I must be an inspiration!

Unfortunately, I'm not an inspiration for safety. None of them have any gear on. Unless you call a black bandana 'gear'. Sunglasses are technically 'eye protection' right? At least one of them wears boots, but I think thats more for the look than anything else.

And they all are on cruisers. What fascination 40 year old men have with cruisers I do not know. They are great looking bikes, but they don't seem to come in any color other than black and chrome. And they are all loud. I understand the 'loud pipes save lives mentality', although I don't necessarily agree with it, but honestly I don't see how having pipes so loud that they shatter the windows of the cagers as you pass by them does you any more good than just having an effective horn.

Well, there is the fun factor in that I suppose.

"Excuse me love, I'll have to call you back, there's a biker on the side of me and I can't hear our conversation. I'll call you as soon as I can unless my husband calls."

I'm actually scared of them. They have tatoos all over their bodies, probably have peircings in places I don't want to know about, and look like they could grind my bones into powder. When I wave, face-shield up with a goofy tongue-flapping grin on my face, they just throw a beer can at me and ride off. One flicked a cigarette at me. It sparked all across the side of my bike, caught fire on the leak in my fuel line and set me ablaze.

Now was that really necessary?

Not to mention the skin-of-teeth stunts they pull. In, out, fast, slow. I think they are jealous of the sportbikers who can do wheelies, so they compensate by cutting people off and riding 40mph in a 15mph traffic jam.

Surprisingly, they don't get upset when anyone else cuts them off. They are calm, cool, unlike me - beating my fist on the handlebar, looking up to the sky screaming "Why God, Why?" and swerving out of control as I try to avoid blacking out from the sheer trauma of it.

Are you sure it isn't Friday?