The bike rack

It's getting kinda warmer so I guess it's time to take my bike rack out of the trunk of my car and put it back on. It's only been there a few weeks. See, I'm a lazy person. The last time I went biking was back in September. But the bike rack stayed on the car for 5 more months. I didn't take it off my car till late february and now it's time to put it back on. As I said, I'm a lazy person.

Laziness frequently has its advantages. For example, it helps you make social acquaintances. Like the time I was too lazy to take out my trash and kept it in my balcony for ten days and it started to stink up the entire neighbourhood and my neighbour who lived in the apartment next to mine banged on my door and asked me to throw it out before she called the apartment people. It wasn't really a conversation dripping with benevolence and amity but we did come to know who the fuck lived next door. It was an angry old woman who was fussy about garbage.

And then there's always the surge of happiness you experience when you accidentally brush against a glass on the coffee table, and it falls onto the carpet and you groan, looking forward to an evening of cleaning out whatever it is that was inside that glass from the carpet, but nothing happens since it's empty because it's been there for who knows how long since you've been too lazy to throw it into the dishwasher and so it makes your day because there's nothing to clean up.

However, being lazy about removing the bike rack has very few advantages, if any. For one, a bike rack isn't very aerodynamic. It slows the car down. And the strap keeps banging against the car creating a slap slap slapping sound that reminds you of the first adult film you ever saw that featured actual fornication. Secondly, it makes your car stand out on the road. There aren't too many black Volkswagen Jettas with yellow bike racks in the greater Philadelphia area. And that, in itself, wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't for the fact that that I'm not a very friendly driver. I demand the highest standards of driving excellence from my fellow travelers on the Pennsylvania turnpike. If their performance ever falls to sub-expectation levels, I get cranky. I tailgate. I flash my headlights. Sometimes I raise my finger to the high heavens. And the person I am making my presence felt to never fails to note that the fucker in the car behind him who's giving him grief is driving a black Volkswagen Jetta with a yellow cycle rack.

I take the same route to work the same time every day. And so do most people. So it happens that I meet the same cars frequently on the road during my work commute. And the black Volkswagen Jetta with the yellow bike rack does not enjoy a whole lot of popularity among those cars. Even if there's a tremendous amount of hostility being directed towards me by the guy in the car next to me, I am blissfully unaware of it till he gives me the finger and then cuts me off at the next opportunity he gets. I am left wondering what the fuck did I do to him till suddenly it dawns on me, hey, that's Silver SUV Guy I tailgated for half an hour last week from Norristown to Valley Forge 'cause he just wouldn't get off the fast lane.

And this has happened to me a number of times. Hey that's Jesus Fish Mazda Guy who I almost ran into. Aww Green Neon With Broken Bumper Guy, you still remember our unfortunate tryst at the tolls. And how you've grown Yellow Nissan Kid, you were a mere baby when I yelled at your mom 'cause she was going too slow.

And now it's gonna start again. The bike rack's back on. I will be seen and heard and detested. But it will be good. It will make me feel wanted. I will battle it out with the best of the best and I will become the stuff legends are made of.