A metaphor of my existential crisis

So I woke up last tuesday morning only to realize that I was an hour and a half late for a three hour class. Considering that it takes me forty-five minutes to walk to the lab, I needed a faster alternative.

I went to Canadian Tire and bought myself a bike.

I was in a hurry to get to class so I didn't really bother checking the condition of it. I just paid it with my credit card and headed directly to the dungeon. It was about halfway towards my destination before I realized that my tires weren't inflated properly, which meant I was pedaling like a madman uphill against the wind four times as much force for the same amount of traction I would be getting with optimally inflated tires.

Not only that, but the nut that prevents the wheel from turning in the complete opposite direction as the handlebars was loose. It came quite as a shock to me when my wheel went in the opposite direction that I was guiding the handlebars. All in all, a pretty good start.

So I try tightening the nut myself but only manage to eat away at the notches. In the end I brought the accursed thing back to Canadian Tire to get it fixed. This was wednesday. I get the bike back on thursday night and the nut had been tightened and everything was great.

For about two days.

I'm biking away (uphill of course) when all of a sudden my seat starts going back and forth depending on whether I put my ass on the front end of back end of the seat. At first i'm thinking this is a new "comfort" thing to prevent the dreaded "sperm count depletion" caused by my ball sack being crushed between my thighs and the seat.

Yeah, banish the thought Phil.

Of all the goddamn tools I got for christmas and the ones i've bought for various broken things, I don't have the one sized Allan key to tighten one bolt so that my ass doesn't go flying off the seat. And of course Canadian Tire didn't have the individual sized key, so I had to buy the whole damn set.

Finally, last evening it was working fine. I went to the lab around 8pm and left my bike next to me while i worked. As i'm about to leave around midnight, I noticed something absolutely spectacular. My front tire had completely deflated itself after coming in contact with...absolutely nothing.

So here's my theory. Every three days, something will come loose or break, something just major enough so that it needs to be taken in for repairs. These repairs will last two days. Then, as soon as I get the bike back, a short period of time will elapse (about a day or two) before the cycle begins again. This will last until the warranty through Canadian Tire expires (in 90 days) at which point both tires will simultaneously explode and the bike will burst into flames.

Oh, and yeah, I walked this morning. Well, that is until one of my boots disintegrated into thin air after coming in contact with the asphalt.