| This is really a classic, so I had to put it here. | |
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Friday, December 01, 2006
Bike Messenger: The Crust of the Shit.
DAMNIT.
A pall sits over this wet, freezing Hogtown: November has given way to December and with it every courier's nightmare, the hideous cold rains that last all day and make you hate everything. Normally its November when the really ugly weather kicks in, and of course it did, but it was mostly a decent fall what with global warming and the lake-effect and all.
Take yesterday. It was a dull rainy day, but a bit of transplanted Vancouver weather - a balmy 15 degrees till 12:30 - so I wasn't getting miserable as I rolled around the city picking and dropping other people's business. Frank (my dispatcher) let me break for lunch around noon and by the time I'd decided to move again everything was cold, with a harbinger that 15C was not to be seen again till April.
Today was of course cold, wet, and miserable from the gun, and Frank let me sit inside as long as possible. My radio, ringtone set to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, went off at 10am with a double at Queen's Quay. Off I went, feeling pretty fine about what I was getting into, the memory of yesterday's hours of wet, cold feet somewhat fading away under my wheels. I turned down towards the lakefront and nearly lost my sou'wester in the howling wind. There were ponds with little waves on bits of Lakeshore Blvd, and I was nearly windbound as I turned the bike eastward. A massive south wind. Whitecaps were rolling up to and over the quay; it was more wind and rain than I could ever remember riding in, and I've ridden in Holland. Epic! I thought. Its the kind of day when you don't even think about making money, just being out there is such an adventure.
It was so wet and the wind so fierce I found a bit of sidewalk to roll east on, so hideous looked the big metal beasts driving beside me. By 12:30 I was a soaking, freezing 'popsicle' and neither inner bootliner nor thickest wool sock nor neoprene overbooty was stopping both feet from the same process: first the damp, the wet, the cold, the numbness and the final stage, a hideous stabbing pain like being crucified with icepicks through the feet. I quit before that stage as it was only raining heavier as the morning became noon.
Frank was not happy, as I was the third bike to book off since the whole death march had begun that morning. On a Friday yet. But I wasn't making the sacrifice, and I dropped my bills and then tore home as fast as my soaking legs would carry me, the water leaking into and spreading around the hands, feet, arms, and even back, as it had been for three hours. If I'd made thirty bucks I'd be suprized but I didn't care.
At home I peeled it all off me and tried to forget it all.
A pall sits over this wet, freezing Hogtown: November has given way to December and with it every courier's nightmare, the hideous cold rains that last all day and make you hate everything. Normally its November when the really ugly weather kicks in, and of course it did, but it was mostly a decent fall what with global warming and the lake-effect and all.
Take yesterday. It was a dull rainy day, but a bit of transplanted Vancouver weather - a balmy 15 degrees till 12:30 - so I wasn't getting miserable as I rolled around the city picking and dropping other people's business. Frank (my dispatcher) let me break for lunch around noon and by the time I'd decided to move again everything was cold, with a harbinger that 15C was not to be seen again till April.
Today was of course cold, wet, and miserable from the gun, and Frank let me sit inside as long as possible. My radio, ringtone set to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, went off at 10am with a double at Queen's Quay. Off I went, feeling pretty fine about what I was getting into, the memory of yesterday's hours of wet, cold feet somewhat fading away under my wheels. I turned down towards the lakefront and nearly lost my sou'wester in the howling wind. There were ponds with little waves on bits of Lakeshore Blvd, and I was nearly windbound as I turned the bike eastward. A massive south wind. Whitecaps were rolling up to and over the quay; it was more wind and rain than I could ever remember riding in, and I've ridden in Holland. Epic! I thought. Its the kind of day when you don't even think about making money, just being out there is such an adventure.
It was so wet and the wind so fierce I found a bit of sidewalk to roll east on, so hideous looked the big metal beasts driving beside me. By 12:30 I was a soaking, freezing 'popsicle' and neither inner bootliner nor thickest wool sock nor neoprene overbooty was stopping both feet from the same process: first the damp, the wet, the cold, the numbness and the final stage, a hideous stabbing pain like being crucified with icepicks through the feet. I quit before that stage as it was only raining heavier as the morning became noon.
Frank was not happy, as I was the third bike to book off since the whole death march had begun that morning. On a Friday yet. But I wasn't making the sacrifice, and I dropped my bills and then tore home as fast as my soaking legs would carry me, the water leaking into and spreading around the hands, feet, arms, and even back, as it had been for three hours. If I'd made thirty bucks I'd be suprized but I didn't care.
At home I peeled it all off me and tried to forget it all.
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