Expectations And Surprises
I had an extremely productive day at work today, but that was because a tonne of things went horribly wrong, and I successfully dealt with most of them. They went wrong due to the carelessness of other people, which made me especially frustrated (didn't discover this until the end of the day, so the middle of my workday was unblemished by this), and the latter half of my day was spent working in a 27 degree environment which was so much fun. So now the company is treating me to a really nice restaurant (the next time certain people come to Granby, I'm totally bringing them here, also, my waitress speaks literally no English, so I'm apparently improving at this French thing). What I'm trying to do is convey the grumpiness with which I left work.
So I'm biking home, feeling grumpy, on relatively back roads. I'm cognisant of a mild, after-dark sketchiness, which is accentuated by the loitering youths all over the place in this town after dark. In this case, I'm passing a pair, one on roller-blades with a hockey stick, one on a bike, who seem to turn just ahead of me, as if to anticipate my path (also interfering with traffic). I started contemplating whether I was riding too quickly to be intercepted, what I might have by way of weapons, and how to comport myself if I am accosted. It's not so much that I actually believed something would happen, but I have a strong tendency to fantasize tangential futures, and when I'm feeling grumpy, I fantasize bad futures in which I kick lots of ass, literally.
So I'm riding along, my mind is elsewhere, and my water bottle slips out of my bag. It's from lemonade, so it's not a big deal but a)I have a strong aversion to littering, b)it's heavy plastic, and I like it, c)it's been really valuable for me, as I've had a very mild throat cold since the weekend. So I pull over and stop, with a sigh, while part of me goes, "Yeah, that's a great idea with sketchiness around, you're increasing your odds of being a target of opportunity." and another part goes, "Don't be stupid. And besides, you're a 6' adult male."
As I turn around, the kid on roller blades crosses the street towards my fallen bottle, and glides up to hand it to me. I said, "Merci beaucoup." He said a more elaborate version of "De rien." And I rode away in a much better mood, with my bottle tucked more firmly into my bag.
So I'm biking home, feeling grumpy, on relatively back roads. I'm cognisant of a mild, after-dark sketchiness, which is accentuated by the loitering youths all over the place in this town after dark. In this case, I'm passing a pair, one on roller-blades with a hockey stick, one on a bike, who seem to turn just ahead of me, as if to anticipate my path (also interfering with traffic). I started contemplating whether I was riding too quickly to be intercepted, what I might have by way of weapons, and how to comport myself if I am accosted. It's not so much that I actually believed something would happen, but I have a strong tendency to fantasize tangential futures, and when I'm feeling grumpy, I fantasize bad futures in which I kick lots of ass, literally.
So I'm riding along, my mind is elsewhere, and my water bottle slips out of my bag. It's from lemonade, so it's not a big deal but a)I have a strong aversion to littering, b)it's heavy plastic, and I like it, c)it's been really valuable for me, as I've had a very mild throat cold since the weekend. So I pull over and stop, with a sigh, while part of me goes, "Yeah, that's a great idea with sketchiness around, you're increasing your odds of being a target of opportunity." and another part goes, "Don't be stupid. And besides, you're a 6' adult male."
As I turn around, the kid on roller blades crosses the street towards my fallen bottle, and glides up to hand it to me. I said, "Merci beaucoup." He said a more elaborate version of "De rien." And I rode away in a much better mood, with my bottle tucked more firmly into my bag.