Nothing!! I have nothing to share!!!!

I feel like the guy at the end of this clip going, "Nothing. I have nothing to sell." I actually have nothing to say here, but I'm doing it anyway. One of the ways I stopped blogging was by saying I had nothing to write about. I'm just going to start typing and see what shakes loose.

So I have a friend who got a mountain bike recently, and he started getting up early and going for a long ride before work. My thought was I would buy my own and then join him some morning. I don't know if you know this, but bicycles are one of those COVID items that are really tough to come by. I'm 6'2", so I can't buy just any old bike. What I was looking for is around a size 21" frame, but some people selling the bikes have no idea what the frame size is. I took shared bikes all the way into the city late last night to try out someone's bike, and I looked like Debo from Friday trying to ride that tiny thing. I was like the bear on the unicycle at the circus. 

This was me. Only with a lot less upper body strength. 

Then today I found one that was "vintage" but finally the size I needed. I got to the guy's house, and it appeared to be an aged 50 plus man living with his mother. The gear shifters were something I had never come across, and this is because the bike was from the late 80's or early 90's by a brand I had never heard of. It looked like an Ocean Pacific t-shirt. Ultimately I was desperate to get on those mountain bike trails, so I bought it. Him and his mom said that if I had any trouble with it to come on back. 

(The font and colors are actually a lot like this. And the internet says this shirt is from 1991, which is about when the bike is from. I'll show you the bike if it comes out of the shop and if the guy in the shop says it's worth fixing/keeping.)

A mile or two down the rode, after stopping at a stoplight, I put my foot on the pedal and heard a snap. I figured the chain had just come loose. Nope. The chain had snapped in two. I googled the nearest bike shop and walked it quite a ways only to find the guy who works there outside talking to two different customers, saying they would have to leave their bikes and he would likely get to them early next week. What could I do? I wasn't going to walk it to another shop miles from there. I know the dude and his mom said to bring it by if I had issues, but that's crazy. If they sold me a lemon, well, they got me. 

Not only that but during the brief time that the bike was working I stopped to buy a new $60 lock for it only to find out that Mrs. Noisewater had a spare one at home that she said I could use. 

Being out in the heat all day with stuff going wrong had me frustrated and tired, but making homemade pizzas with the family and pouring a tall vodka and ginger ale certainly helped. 

How you doing, Seven Readers? Have you been trying to get something for yourself during quarantine? 

Within the span of one day, I learned just how poorly educated some inner city children are through these two situations:

1. The kids were reading Ray Bradbury's "All Summer In a Day," a story in which there are children living on the planet Venus, where it rains every day and the sun never comes out.  One girl, Margaret is fascinated by the sun and spends all her time thinking about it, but the other asshole kids thought it would be funny to lock her in the closet.  And while in the closet she misses that one time the sun actually made an appearance.  Moral of the story: Kids are fricking mean.  Even on other planets.

So back to Chicago, one girl in the class asks, "So are there really schools on Venus?"

The girl that asked this is in the 7th grade, so roughly 13-years-old.  I had to just answer the question and let her no that there isn't any life on Venus or on any other planet other than Earth in our solar system.  But you know, it's good she asked because now she knows.  It's totally not her fault that her parents somehow raised her thinking there are schools on the planet Venus.

2. Some 5th graders (around 10-years-old) were talking about the movie "Friday."  I said to them that it's wild that a movie from 1995 is still popular with them.  One girl said, "No, it's not from 1995.  Then why is it in color?"

Wow.  She actually thinks all movies made before roughly 2000 were black and white.

Again, the only way to handle this is to just clear that up for her without making anyone feel stupid.  They're just kids, after all.  Both pretty great kids that just need more people around them being better examples, making them read, and having conversations with them about things other than reality television.

There's still hope, people.  Maybe we just need to be more progressive like those schools on Venus . . .