As most of you know, I’ve been working in downtown Seattle for a while now. Living in Redmond makes for a heck of a commute; about 85 minutes each way including driving, riding the bus, and walking. Overall, I kinda like it, as it gives me time to read the daily geek news and nap on the bus.

Tomorrow is Ride Your Bike to Work Day, and considering I live pretty close to the Park & Ride, I figured I’d give it a test run this morning. Over the past few days I’ve gotten my bike tuned up and my helmet cleaned off, and got a spankin’ new backpack. I was all set, and even a bit excited for my first Bike to Work experience. The fact that you’re reading this at all should indicate that this feeling, sadly, would be coming to an abrupt end.

I set off from home a bit early, leaving myself plenty of time to explore shortcuts, or stop for a couple smoke breaks along the way. The sun was out, the air was clean from last night’s rain, the temperature was perfect. I went swooshing down the hill and out onto the main street, sticking to the bike lane, enjoying the occasional spray of water on my face as my front tire sloshed through the leftover puddles. Riding to work kicks ass! I’m going to start doing this every …

Hang on … that doesn’t taste like water. That tastes more like, ugh … dirt-oil-grease-grime-garbage! Yeah, puddles on the side of the road, no matter how recent the rainfall, are not nice. I realized this just as I noticed a slightly damp feeling at the base of my spine. A dampness which was slowly creeping downward. I pulled off onto a side street, pulled off my glove, and felt the back of my pants. My hand, as you’ve already guessed, came back covered in brown sludge. Looking down, I noticed that the front of my shirt and jacket were also covered in the same viscous road goo. “Ok, well, I can’t go to work like this.” My first Ride to Work Day had come to an end.

I rode back home, pulled the bike through the front door, and walked into the bathroom to look myself over. What I saw was surprising, to say the least. My entire body was covered in dime-sized blotches of black evil, from my helmet, to my face, my jacket, my backpack, and my shoes. Even my head, where visible through the vents in the helmet, was dotted with sweat-diluted grime, each of which was making an inexorable push toward one eye or the other. My pants, however, were surprisingly clean, not a splotch or speckle to be found, until I remembered to check the backside. To put it bluntly, and there really isn’t any other way to put it, I looked like I’d crapped myself.

I changed my clothes, salvaging only my shoes, wiped down my backpack, hopped in my truck, lit a cigarette, and drove .92 miles to the Park & Ride. Parking was its usual hassle, but I found a spot and grabbed the next bus, the irritation of my morning slowly giving way to thoughts of how I was going to write about it later. The bus took its normal meandering route, dropping me a few blocks from work about an hour later. I walked down the sidewalk and rounded the corner …

Actually, before we go on, there are a couple things you need to know. I work in the Smith Tower, which is right in the middle of Pioneer Square. That area, if you haven’t been there, is where a vast number of our homeless population reside. This makes for an interesting mix of sights, sounds, and smells, many of which aren’t available in other parts of the city. The guidelines, as I’ve come to understand them, are as follows:

1) If the pigeons don’t hang around after dark, neither should you.
2) If it’s on the ground, it’s either happy or dead, leave it there.
3) If it’s wet, it’s urine.
4) The city pressure washes the alley behind Smith Tower at 9am.

It’s these last two points that we need to bear in mind as we continue on …

I walked down the sidewalk and rounded the corner just as the pressure washer technician spun around to douse me, full in the face. For the second time in as many hours, this was not just water, and I knew it. Nodding and waving off the apologies lobbed at me, I made a hasty retreat into the building and hurried to the restroom. And again, I found myself staring at a blotched and speckled me in the mirror, this time with petite bits of trash and God-knows-what clinging here and there. I cleaned myself up the best I could, but it was inevitable that I was to spend my day smelling as if many, many people had peed on me.

But hey, at least I didn’t look like I’d crapped my pants. That would really suck.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Home, Other, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.