It begins...

I'm escaping the Patco train station on 16th and Locust on a rainy and cold October evening with my trusty bike "rusty" at my side. Water drips from the bag that I've taped to the seat to keep my ass dry as I puddle stomp through the soaking streets; cars whizzing by, blowing horns because they apparently require more space. I gently stand up on the pedals, wheels shaking violently out of true and pull one hand off the handle bars to unbuckle and unfasten my pants exposing my pasty white ass to the discordant driver. Two lanes of traffic and a parking lane is apparently not enough clearance for this apple shaped simpleton. I curse with fogged breath as the light flicks from green to yellow to red; interupting my determined cadence home and I nearly topple onto the street as I brake and try to get off my bike with my pants nearly around my ankles.

"God damn it Rusty" I say as I morosely dismount, "why are you so fucking slow"? Drip, drip, drip, comes the reply as water streams down the wide angled handlebars. Rusty looks particularly unmotivated this evening, her thick black wheels sag and crack under my weight and the brakes croak with each increasingly panicked squeeze. "She was a shelter bike... I saved her" I say with a fake smile as a bike messenger looks scornfully down at the rust encrusted chain, wriggling because I know I'm being judged for being such a negligent caretaker. "She would've been used for scrap or worse if I hadn't found her" I yell as he effortlessly kicks off the ground and speeds away through the intersection. "Why can't you be more like that bike" I say to Rusty as I ferry her clumsily across the road, still trying to buckle my belt.