It’s a rainy summer.

The first picture is the flag outside of work. I can only see a segment of tinted¹ sky from my cubicle. I think it’s better that my cubicle isn’t closer to the window because office life is already distracting, and I would get nothing done if I could zone out by looking outside.

The second picture was taken on Hiawatha avenue. Yesterday I biked to the school gym, and I used the massive pedestrian bridge over the 8-lane (or so) highway.

The pedestrian/bike bridge is so steep that biking up it felt like I was taking on the French Alps. Although that might be an indicator that I don’t bike enough, because the other bikers whizzed past me as I was doing some dramatic Armstrong pumping and puffing.

On the bike ride I realize that my tires are pretty deflated. I park my bike at the student union and try to use the free air pump which I spotted the day before. The pump makes a lot of noise but doesn’t plug into my tires.

So I walk to Dinkytown, the student village, and go to one of the bike shops. The guy at the bike shop is mortified when I tell him that I don’t check my tire pressure every week.²

I look at him like “get over it” and he sells me a big honking air pump.

By the time I’m paying, the guy is convinced that I’m an idiot, so he decides to explain how to use the pump:

Bike guy: “Okay, this is how you use a bike pump, just in case. You put this on the valve and then lift this lever to lock it into place so the air can go into the tire.”

I am offended for a split second and then think – wait, did the free pump at the student union have a lock-lever that I forgot to lift?!

I pay, avoid the Amnesty International guy on the corner, and go to the gym sporting the huge bike pump. The girl at the gym front desk gives me a crazy look, as if I might bludgeon her with the bike pump.

I didn’t.

After the gym I go back to my bike and the free pump, worried that I just wasted $40 on a pump because I didn’t see the stupid lever on the free pump. But, thank goodness, there is no such lever, and the school pump is simply useless.

I pump up my tires, awkwardly strap the air pump onto my skateboarder backpack, and then huff home. I somehow manage to find every steep, hilly street on the way back, so my thighs are burning at work later that day.

Jack (a coworker) noticed:

Jack: “You look wiped out.”
Me: “I biked earlier today. I’m sort of like Lance Armstrong.”
Jack: “Uh, not quite.”

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¹ The tinted window makes the sky appear overcast at all times.
² There’s a definite snobbery to cycling culture. You won’t catch me at a critical mass anytime soon.