I had the dream last night
Some places and things I really must find include:
- bike shops other than City Bike Depot, since they are overpriced and not very knowledgeable
- karaoke bars
- good clubs and bars to gain social calibration
- a music store to get a cheap ukulele
- cheap souvenir stores to buy stuff for all my friends back home
- an electronics store
- a store that sells emu, kangaroo and other exotic Australian meats
- other hotspots for free internet
Research completed and since I start work tomorrow, I need to do some groceries to make my lunches. Back at home I never make my own lunch and usually eat out, which is not only hard on my wallet, but is generally unhealthy as well. Since this McDonalds is in Chinatown and right next to the Entertainment Centre, I notice that there are little girls everywhere wearing the same black T-shirt. They each have full make-up on and are practicing their dance moves together. There must be a few thousand of these little girls; seemingly they must be here for a dance competition of some kind. All of them are dressed alike, with pushy parents telling how to dance and act properly. Makes me happy that I had the parents I had, who let me be MYSELF and didn’t make me live up to their standards or society’s for that matter. Sure when I was out of order they had to knock be back on my path, but they did it well and were rarely that angry when I made a mistake.
As I leave Chinatown I notice there is an older man on stilts with white make-up on his face, a long green and red dress with boas streaming down from his waist and he is spinning a fluorescent green hoola-hoop around his waist. He seems very happy and his sign reads:
“I am a 74 year old war veteran from Viet-Nam. Please give me donations as I was severely injured by Americans during their invasion. You can see bullet holes on my shoulders from being shot many times. If you cannot give me money, at least give me smiles!”
I decide to give this guy a couple of dollars since he seems to be enjoying life and I generally like to reward happiness. Guaranteed, this guy has done this for quite a while and I find it amazing how something so simple can make him so happy. He has most likely stood here for years doing the same thing day in day out. In his mind though he is giving value, sure he is getting donations from time to time, but he enjoys what he does 100%. Other human beings might see him and think that this is boring, but he doesn’t live up to their standards, only his own. At some point, I recall reading about how giving value, as opposed to taking value, is the most satisfying thing a human being can do. When you do so, serotonin is released into the brain and it helps protect the body from disease.
On my way to the Waterloo IGA for groceries I can see this group of 6 hipsters trying to fix a couple of bikes. As I have previously discussed, cycling has recently become one of my passions in life. Not just riding them, but actually fixing up and restoring them is something that I enjoy more. When I was a very young, my father showed me how to fix many mechanical things, including certain parts on bikes, and I can easily say that I can fix bikes now a lot better than he ever could. Not sure how I feel about this, but he could easily fix cars and planes better than I will ever be able too. Sure I can’t fix every bike, but it makes me happy and practicing everyday makes me happy.
When I walk up to the hipsters, I tell them I can help and examine the bike and it appears that they are trying to get the inner tube out of the rim, without taking the rim off of the bike. This is a NO NO and they have entangled the tube in the spokes and have even managed to wrap it around the frame of the bike. I decide at this point to head back to my apartment, only minutes away, and grab my tool bag. After removing the tire from the rim and unravelling the inner tube to its original form, I commence in diagnosing the problem deductively:
These hipsters have quite the conundrum:
A) Solve Problem: What is wrong with the bike?
B) Hypothesis: The inner tubes are leaking because they have holes in them.
C) Experimentation: Using my tire pump, I will force air into the inner tubes of the bikes tires and if I hear or feel a leak the inner tubes, they will have to be either replaced or simply repaired. After inflating the tubes, not only can I hear air leaking out of multiple holes, but I can SEE holes and feel air escaping the tubes.
D) Conclusion: The hypothesis was correct and the inner tubes are leaking because they have holes them and will have to be replaced and not just repaired.
When I tell them the problem, they tell me they happen to have 10-15 inner tubes at one of their places. 2 of them head out to grab them. I’m guessing these bikes are stolen and so are the inner tubes, but I won’t judge and besides I am enjoying fixing these old bikes. When they return I read the size from the side of the tire itself that reads 700 X 23C. I rummage through the tubes and find several clean ones of those specific calibres. Using some water from my camel back and a rag they have provided, I clean the tubes and check for minor leaks and to my avail, none appear. I slip the tubes into the tires, which I have just placed back onto the rim. By means of my pump, I inflate the tires to the desired pressure. Sure I don’t have my pressure gauge, but I have almost come to the point where I know when a tire is properly inflated. Just to be safe though, I tell them to go to the gas station down the street and check the pressure with one of their gauges.
Mission accomplished.
Once I am done I tell them if they need anything else fixed I would be more than happy to help them. They all look at each other puzzled and I decide say, “Maybe we could all hang out sometime!” Now their eyes get wide and they analyse the faces of one another for a brief moment and start to laugh and point at me. The group of hipsters now rides away high fiving each other and making fun of me.
“What a loser!” one shouts.
“Was he really serious about him being OUR friend? HAHAHA!” another exclaims.
“Oh my fucking god!”
Now they high five each other.
“We are so cool to have manipulated an idiot like that guy.”
“FUCK YAH MATE!”
“OI OI OI OI OI OI OI!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
I should feel depressed that they didn’t accept me. Boo fucking hoo. The thing is, I enjoyed helping them and they would be lucky to have me as their friend. When you do something you enjoy doing, it doesn’t matter what the outcome is. On my way home after getting my groceries, I feel happy to have gotten my hands dirty and helped out. Besides they are fucking hipsters: tight ripped jeans and t shirts, lens-less thick rimmed glasses, strange hairdos and facial hair, converse shoes, lame tattoos, unfiltered self-rolled cigarettes, brown bagged beer, generic jewellery (one had a pacifier necklace) and…the icing on the cake…FIXED GEAR BIKES.
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