I woke up with ambition yesterday morning (rare) and, after a brief (and cheap) Amazon shopping spree I decided to go for a bicycle ride while it was still early.
(This in spite of last year’s traumatizing bicycle hijinks, and instead of a mile jog, on the assumption that i could sustain my exercise much longer on a bike than wheezing and myocardial infarctioning my waya round Dickinson Square Park.)
I had an idea of the route i wanted to take away from my house, but hadn’t really decided on what streets to use to get back to my house. I considered bringing my wallet in the event that i passed anywhere interesting to have breakfast, but i couldn’t find my bike lock, so i realistically couldn’t stop anywhere.
Fast forward to the beginning of the fourth mile, as i realized that i would swing just two blocks from the Melrose. Maybe i could order out and sit with my bike and eat? I patted my ass to check for my wallet only to find that it wasn’t there.
No big deal… i didn’t bring it. Right? Right?!
I had to hope not, at least for the moment – it was no use backtracking. I could only retrace half of my path while covering the same ground before Pattison turned into a mile-long, medianed, blind curve on which i wouldn’t dare ride against traffic.
By mile five i still couldn’t remember what my ultimate decision on the wallet-bringing was. It would be just like me to not remember leaving it on my desk, or anywhere else in the house, for that matter – i don’t lose things so much as i leave them in places i don’t expect them to be left.
By the time i got back to the house i was sure that my wallet was still on my desk. So sure that i was shocked, shocked i tell you, to find that it wasn’t on my desk. Or on the floor in front of my desk. Or in the jeans i decided not to wear. Or in the basement where i keep my bike. Or in the refridgerator, or anywhere else i might have mistakenly left it in trade for some other item.
Yes, my wallet was almost definitely somewhere on the course of my seven mile route, which included well-travelled bits of Snyder Plaza and prime jogging territory in front of the stadiums. If it fell out of my pocket either of those places it was bound to be gone by now.
My first thought was that, clearly, a higher power was trying to convince me not to exercise via bi-wheeled cycle, as nothing good ever happens to me when i ride it. After i got past lamenting that I starting to get worked up thinking about cancelling my credit cards, and if my shopping spree would still go through. I had to find that wallet, if for no reason other than for the scandalously cheap Indigo Girls CDs that i had just bought.
Let’s think about this, i told myself. Up to where I realized I lost it I had stuck with my path with no deviation, and always rode with traffic when there was a bike lane. The wallet was in my back pocket. At points where my ass was planted firmly on the seat it had nowhere to go. It also wasn’t likely to slip out anywhere i was idly pedalling or mostly coasting. I had it have lost it somewhere bumpy, or somewhere where i was pedalling hard to speed up or change gears.
By sheer deduction this (in theory) eliminated all the well-travelled bits, leaving the Weccacoe-Pattison connection, which involved crossing both cobblestones and tracks, followed by a lengthy straightaway, and then the scary one mile blind curve of Pattison Ave that cars definitely took at more than the posted 35mph. I hoped it wasn’t on the curve, because couldn’t figure out how to stop there to pick it up without being killed. It was scary enough the first time while moving.
Well, it wasn’t at the curve … it was at the exact point where all three of my conditions were met – i was high above the seat to avoid getting jostled by the tracks, already pedalling hard heading into the straightaway, and fingering the gear shift. Actually, i almost forgot to keep an eye out for my wallet before i realized that i was doing all three things, and then i looked down and there was my wallet.
Serendipitous luck? The bicycle gods trying to entice me not to abandon their instrument of misery and destruction? Are my Veronica Mars-like skills of deduction honed to such a fine point that the location of the wallet was hardly a mystery? Or, am i just so deep into leftover good karma from this summer that i was bound to find it somewhere?
In any event, point taken – the wallet comes with me every time, safey ensconced behind a zipper or several buttons.