sometimes

Sometimes, when I arrive home & chuck my bike on my shoulder & run up my stairs, when I catch my breath & my eyes fall on the Motobecane ... sometimes, I decide I should just yank that old whitewall off it that very instant. I should put on the matching blue-striped tire &, while I'm at it, I could probably stand to patch up one of the old 27x1-1/2s I've got lying around so that I have a spare but, wouldn't you know it, I need it now, so wasn't that a lucky thing. Then I look up & see that it's 2:45 in the morning, & I wonder if my roommates think I'm crazy.

And then I look down at my grease-stained fingers. I look at the TWO tire levers I've broken in an effort to get that damned ancient tire off (it was utterly ossified), & I look at the shredded selfsame ossified tire I eventually sliced off with an x-acto blade. Sometimes, I smile a little & I think, "No. They don't think anything about my sanity. They know."