A weird, weird morning

This morning started out like any other. Bernie and I took off from the house on the way to his school and my office. On Dartmouth Street, my rear tube exploded with a lovely gunshot sound. The tube blew with enough force to instantly wrap itself around the rear cog. Bernie and I pulled over on the sidewalk so I could take a look. Not that looking was going to help, because I left the house with no spare tube.

At that same moment, a man in his early 70s and his dog came out onto the sidewalk from a house down the street. He walked up and started looking at my bike. Meanwhile, his dog started jumping around Bernie. Bernie got a little spooked and backed up. The dog jumped at him again (not menacingly, but energetically) and Bernie jumped into the street. And this is where the morning started to get weird.

The man whipped around and yelled, “Not in the street! What are you, crazy!” I jumped up and told Bernie to come out of the street and told the man to “control your dog. He’s in the street because your dog scared him.”

Mr. Crazy: “Anyone can see it’s a friendly dog. You should train your children not to be afraid of dogs.”

Me: “We’ve told our kids not to go up to strange dogs. Why don’t you just move along?”

Mr. Crazy: “It’s low-class to be frightened of dogs.”

Me: “Sir, why don’t you just move along.”

At this point, Mr. Crazy started muttering and insulting me. Then he told me: “I have a Boy Scout knife if you want to cut that tube. I never leave the house without a knife.”

You be the judge, folks. This guy, who has just been yelling at my son and me, now reveals that he has a knife. I know he followed that up with an offer of help, but at this point, I was a little spooked and more than a little annoyed. I was also facing the prospect of carrying my bike to Bernie’s school, because I couldn’t dislodge the tube from the cog.

Me: “No thanks. Please just move along.”

Mr. Crazy: “I’ve never heard of anyone refusing help.”

Me (yelling): “Just go!”

At this point, Bernie started getting involved and yelling at the guy. I told him to stop, shouldered my Nomade and started down the sidewalk with Bernie riding slowly ahead of me. Mr. Crazy and his dog were walking right behind us.

Mr. Crazy: “Schmuck! I never heard of anyone refusing help. And riding on the sidewalk is inappropriate.”

Can you believe it? This guy is lecturing me for carrying my bike on the sidewalk while my 4-year-old rides in front of me.

After about a block of this, I stopped at the corner of Dartmouth and Harvard to lock my bike to a stop sign. Mr. Crazy and his dog stopped at the corner to berate us some more, and then he offered to help again. Bernie yelled at him again and we kept walking. Mr. Crazy crossed the street, and Bernie and I made it to his school without incident.

I had my cell phone in my under-seat bag, which I took with me when we started walking. I called my friend and co-worker Mike to see if he was at the office yet. He wasn’t, but he was taking his wife to work, so I called my wife Jen, who was home sick. I asked her if she would pack up our younger son and come get me.

I walked back to the bike and waited. A few minutes later, Mike showed up, followed almost immediately by Jen. Of course, the back of our car is full of stuff we were taking to a school garage sale, so I heaved the bike on top of the mess, used one of the bungee cords from my bike trunk to keep the car’s trunk shut, them climbed into Bernie’s car seat to hold the bike while we drove home. (This last bit amused my younger son, John, who already thinks I’m nuts anyway.)

We got home and I brought up my newest acquisition from the basement — a Motobecane Mirage from the late 70s. This is the bike I just bought two days ago. Turns out the rear tube has a slow leak, so I grabbed my Giant instead. While I was doing this, Jen and John were walking around on the sidewalk. Suddenly I heard Jen call out. There was a dead cat across the street from our house. A dead black cat with a white chest and paws. We have a black cat with a white chest and paws. So do our neighbors down the street.

I went across the street to look, but I couldn’t tell whether it was our cat, Domino, or not. I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t sure. Jen and I went in the house to look for Domino, but we couldn’t find her. We’ve had Domino since we’ve been married (about 12 years) and she’s been all over the world with us, so we’re pretty attached to her. Jen went across the street again to look. This time, she was sure it wasn’t Domino. A minute later our neighbors came home and saw their cat. Their little boy started crying and jumped into his mom’s arms.

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