Bad omen

Aside from toilet paper, and its highly evolved successor, flushable wet wipes, are there any disposable hygiene products more indispensible than dental floss or Q-tips? OK, there are, but for men, are there any disposable hygiene products more indispensible than floss or Q-tips?

And yet, the sight of either outside of it’s packaging and anywhere other than a trash receptacle is highly disgusting. So imagine my delight when waiting for the elevator this morning and I encountered this:

Right in the middle of the floor. Are you kidding me? Frankly, while I admire the utility of those little floss picks, I find them revolting. If only because it seems the only people that use them do so in public. Like in the lobby of a restaurant that they’ve just finished dining at but where I’m waiting for a table. Nothing says bon appétit quite like a dude with a gravy stain on his distended belly who’s picking his teeth with a floss pick on his way out the restaurant door. Yummy.

I should have taken it as a sign that my day would get no better from there and I’d best hide somewhere for the remainder. But the crappy thing about a job is that they expect you to be there. Every day. I know.

The good thing about my job is that if I sneak out to ride at lunch, they’re cool with that. Yesterday that meant being at my desk until well after 7:00 p.m. to make up for it, but I’ll make that tradeoff anytime. The weather mid-day is perfect for mountain biking right now. After work, it gets dark too early so the ride either needs to be short or with lights.

Today I met Elden for a lunch ride. It was supposed to be an amazing experience—his first ride ever in Millcreek Canyon. All was going great—Elden was raving about what great trails these were for riding a single speed, the leaves were changing, temperature was just right, and trails weren’t too crowded—until we dropped down towards Dog Lake.

The trail there is rather wide and covered with loose gravel. I was by no means going fast, but I wasn’t going slow either. I hit a small bump in the trail, which caused my front wheel to turn just a bit. I thought to myself “it would really suck if my wheel washed out before I can correct and I crashed in all this loose rock.”

Just then, my wheel washed out before I could correct and I crashed in all that loose rock. My bike went to one side of the trail, and I went to the other, bearing the brunt of the fall on my left hand and right-side ribs, elbow, and hip. Elden had nowhere to go and crashed on top of me. On the way down his front teeth hit my knee and took a little chunk out.

  

I just lay there in the dirt for a minute, moaning, and wondering if anything was broken. Once we got up and took stock, I had cuts and scrapes all over, but bones and joints seemed intact. Elden’s right knee was a bloody mess, the same one he banged up at Leadville. The last scab from the Leadville injury had just fallen off yesterday. OK, not really, but close.

We tried to continue on, but our hearts weren’t in it. So we limped back to Elden’s truck where we alternated moans of pain all the way down the canyon. I thought about calling in to work and saying I wasn’t coming back today on account of the injuries. But that may jeopardize future lunch ride privileges, so here I am.

Anyone want to ride tomorrow?