Post-a-Day Starts Here

OK, I'm figuring out that I'm just not going to keep this blog going at all unless I make some kind of commitment to it I can actually keep. So, I'm just going to write something every day for awhile and see how that goes. Seems potentially easier than saving stories up and then trying to find the time to express them properly.

Here's today's news, then.

I left for work early this morning so I could put air in the back tire of my bike. Earlier in the week, I'd taken it over to Amber's new place in the city (hooray!), and when I rode it home in the morning, the tire was really soft (boo!). Like, there was basically no air in it at all. That meant I had to take the number 80 bus with the super cranky driver — who never returns my greetings and has the most unkempt beard I've ever seen on an employed person and smells like a sponge — every morning this week till I finally had a chance to refill the tire, which chance happened to be today.

The thing is, I expected the air to just leak out again pretty quickly, as it obviously had a puncture somewhere. I figured I might at least get downtown on it OK and then have to refill it at the end of the day. But weirdly, when I rode the bike home eight hours later, the tire was still as solid as when I'd filled it up.

Did one of Amber's neighbours let the air out of my tire? And, if so, why? It was locked in her garage, so it's really just the three other people living in her building who would have access to it. Amber thinks I'm being paranoid, but how else could this have happened? I'll see how the tire feels tomorrow morning, and if it's rideably firm, I'm going to be checking out her new housemates very carefully.

I guess if this story were to be mapped onto the lyrics of a Smiths song (and, really, why shouldn't it be?), we'd have to cast the hirsute number 80 bus driver as This Charming Man. Is it possible that his crankiness and general lack of charm are just a cover for the fact that he's in love with me and can't figure out, when I wish him a good morning, how to say something smooth like, "It's gruesome that someone so handsome should care" without stammering? Could he actually be one of the tenants in Amber's building, and did he get so frustrated by his lovesick speech impediment and angered by my continuing relationship with her that he vandalized my only means of transport in order to get me into/onto his charming car/turf/bus, where we could finally have a proper chat about rings and smooth leather? And, if all that is the case, why did he angrily pull away from the curb yesterday when I tried to get on, disappearing into morning traffic while I continued to hold out my unused ticket?

The whole thing is a real mystery...