Watch Where You Put Your U-lock, or reflections on annoyance

They tell you the universe has a sense of humor... they just don't tell you it's not funny. All I could think about this morning was little frustrations: my sticky front brake, not having enough time, and being hungry halfway through class. So then I get out, think I have just enough time to eat lunch and get to work for the rest of the day, and some clown has managed to get her U-lock around my brake line so I can't leave. (I admit I was briefly tempted to lock my bike to hers and just walk to work... let's see how YOU like it.)

So I get to spend my time between class/work walking over to the theater building to see if there's anybody working in a shop who will loan me an allen wrench so i can disconnect my brake and get free (but first I leave a strongly worded note about minding where you put your lock). I catch the lighting supervisor heading to his office in between meetings, disconnect my brake to get free and see a couple random nuts and washers fall that I swear did not come off of my bike (or hopefully don't do anything important), catch Bill to give him his tool back, and race back to work, while realizing too often the universe's idea of humor being really lame practical jokes ("Oh you're in a rush? Haha, locking up your bike!")



But as I plotted my pithy remarks about the universe's sense of humor being entirely too on the nose, I couldn't really sustain my irritation. Because that brake really needed to be adjusted anyways, and I was never going to take the time to mess with it until I had to. And because I borrowed a tool from Bill who always puts me in a good mood, because it's hard to act irritable around somebody who's been so patient in teaching me how to handle $400 lights up in the air without breaking them (or me). Sustaining a bad mood around somebody who's just so excited about their new Winnie the Pooh mug (with a bee on the handle!) without at least being painfully aware of how petty you're being, well that's just harder than dubbing a Nicholas Cage Movie into Cantonese. And I had to reflect, a few years ago when I was more in touch with my inner Hulk the note I left would have been a lot more unpleasant (and would have had heavy thesaurus work around the word "idiot") but now I'm actually hoping the recipient doesn't take it too hard. I mean I hope she takes it a little hard, if she just blows it off well then fuck her.

Maybe I needed to lighten up today, and this was the universe's way of making me go wash the shit off my nose*. Still not funny, much like Home Improvement or Two and a Half Men where you can see the jokes, but couldn't possibly get the morphine drip up high enough to make them funny. (long hospital stays with chronic pain and a drug-induced haze made me appreciate sitcoms and pudding in a whole new way).

Somehow this did seem awfully familiar though, picturing the universe as somebody who's always trying to be funny to those in bad moods, but usually with the lamest, saddest joke imaginable. A person who would fight fire with fire until he's annoyed the grumpy into submission. And much as I'd like to be the person whose indefatigable cheerfulness like the tide raises all boats, I'm really not, nobody buys into it. However I do sometimes manage to peck at the ornery people on their perches until they're forced to spread their wings and take flight... just to get away.

Anyways, just watch where you put your U-lock, please.

*-I don't actually remember where this came from, but the idea is that if everywhere you turn there's a bad smell, you have shit on your nose. And the problem isn't anybody else's, it's that you need to go and wash your face.