"She Looked Just Like A Trainwreck"

Picture, if you will, the Chuck on his way to work early this morning. He is on his bike, cutting travel time from 15 minutes to a mere 5, no mean feat when one is already somewhat late for work. Yes, it is cold upon the bike, with the wind cutting across his skin like a frosty knife, but he has his scarf and gloves, and he can handle the cold for the few minutes he will be exposed to it.

See the entrance to the corner gas station on Jenkins, one of the main thoroughfairs in the campus vicinity. This entrance has a slight patch of ice on it, but nothing too serious or too large. Anyone paying attention could easily negotiate the ice and continue on their merry way.

Envision the Chuck, blissfully riding his bike and listening to Glen Phillips, oblivious to the dangers before him. The sky is clear, the ground seems mostly dry, and there shouldn't be any bad patches of ice between here and work, right? Certainly not on the sloping entrance to the corner store.

Ah, but alas for our hapless protagonist, there is ice there! And he realizes this too late, and also realizes he has angled the bike so that he may negotiate the tricky maneuver of going from the sidewalk to the corner store parking lot. See the bike go one way, see the Chuck go the other in a comic ballet of slapstick. See the young man with his pride bruised more than his body, for who would have thought he'd slip here, on one of the main streets, before everyone in town? Hear him mutter curses and explitives as he regains his composure and his bike and sets off--at a much more sedate and careful pace--for work. See him limp into work ten minutes late, one knee of his khakis soiled by the fall, one of his gloves rather tattered on the palm from saving his flesh from a similar fate. Hear Chuck swear he'll never bike when it's icy again.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Glen Phillips, "Careless"