As luck would not have it...

I have days where I am extraordinarily unlucky.  Not in huge things.  I'm not country-song unlucky.  But still...

I don't just mean in terms of stubbing my toe or something like that.  My lack of coordination is so much a part of me that I pretty much just take it for granted that I will injure myself at least once on any given day.  Just ask anyone who has lived with me.  I stumble around and run into things so much in the mornings that one of my housemates said I sound like a small, crippled elephant when I wake up.  Judging purely by the number of unexplained bruises I find on my shins and arms, I would agree.

But today featured just a small spurt of random unluckiness.  The main event this revolved around was a bike ride.  I woke up really wanting to take a bike ride.  There were good reasons for this.  Reason 1: I have done nearly nothing in the past several weeks that could really be considered "working out" (unless you count how sore my calves were after a day of walking in heels).  My body is beginning to have the definition of a miniature Jabba the Hut.  Reason 2: It is ungodly hot here today and my motivation to work out did not quite go far enough to motivate me to go for a run and, as I do not have a gym membership, working out indoors was not exactly an option.  Reason 3:  I really wanted to go to the bookstore on campus to further waste time and it is too far to walk in the heat and you have to pay for parking.

In order to go on this adventure in athleticism I had to tackle the problem that has been sitting on our balcony: my bike's flat tire.  I have never fixed a tire before.  Or a tube, which I guess was the problem.  I had a replacement tube on hand so I decided it couldn't possibly be that hard to fix.  I disconnected my back tire from the bike, getting chain grease all over me in the process.  Because I didn't have the precious "tire levers" they recommended that I use, I decided to be innovative and use a screwdriver (of the non-Phillip's head variety.  I knew about the puncture risk.  I was careful!).  Tire - removed.  Tube - removed.  New tube - inserted.  Tire - put back on.  After putting my tire back on my bike and feeling far too smug for being able to re-attach the chain all by myself, I pumped up the tire with minor difficulty.  Fixed!  I felt like some sort of handy-woman goddess.  This amount of pride in myself, by the way, was a mistake.

Helmet firmly in place (apparently it's illegal to ride your bike here without one, though I saw lots of other cyclists not wearing helmets), I headed down our three floors to the street, hitting my shins repeatedly with the bike.  These things happen.  I started biking away from the house, flying down the sidewalks and streets around me, giving nods to all the other biker-people, obviously healthy and active just like me.  I shifted and braked, signaled and turned.  I was feeling powerful and far, far too awesome.  And I was unfamiliar with feeling that athletic and awesome.  Which I think is why I was not really very surprised when the back tire completely popped a few miles away from the apartment.

I got off the bike to assess the damage.  The tube I am sure was popped but now the tire as well had developed a huge tear just above the rim.  I laughed to myself a little.  I can't really explain why I was apparently so determined to take this all with good humor.  Maybe I was dehydrated or something.  It was hot.  I promise I lost a bit of the humor of the situation when I got a mile or two into my sweat-soaked, uphill hike with a bike that kept hitting me in the back of the calves and tearing little bits of my flesh out.  I felt not nearly as cool walking past all the students and successful cyclists on the way home.  In fact, I felt a little pathetic.  But I guess I actually got that workout between the biking and the hiking...

Anyway, I am successfully back in the apartment, the devil-bike is sitting in our kitchen, and I am debating whether to read or watch dvds I have taken from the public library.  Who am I kidding.  I am totally going to sit in the living room and watch dvds.  I need a job.