I thought I was going to either a) die, b) kill someone, or c) explode this morning while trying to replace the tube in my back bike tire. Ever changed a bike tire? Yeah? Easy? Yeah? Well, ever changed a tube on a recumbent? No? It's nigh impossible, people. I will never fucking do that again. Ever. I will happily pay the exorbitant labour fees at the bike shop, and suffer the blow to my ego that will surely accompany having to ask some bike shop punk to do this supposedly easy job in order to never have to go through that ordeal again.
Afterward, my finger bleeding, my hands covered in grease, and all wound up in fury and frustration, I needed a cup of Earl Grey to calm me down. Then I thought I might knit a few rows to further chill out but I couldn't do it with my index finger bandaged, and I didn't want to get blood on M'hijo's fisherman sweater so I had to give up. It took a half hour to feel normal again.
The good part of the process was M'hijo's seeming indifference to being in the bike trailer. Today was his maiden voyage as part of the cycling world, and he didn't mind his helmet too much and was happy in the trailer provided it was moving. When we stopped, he wanted to get out immediately.
Incidentally, Part I of Things I WIll Never Do Again is fix the refrigerator, a task I suffered over for about two weeks last fall. There's a reason people hire professionals for this work, I have discovered. I did feel tough ripping out the back wall of the freezer and removing bits and pieces, though. It was fun to go to the appliance shop and convince them that I wanted to buy a part, not hire them to come and install it for me, just buy it.
But is that little thrill worth the emotional toil of this type of work? A resounding no. No, in future I will embrace both on-site appliance repairpeople and bike shop mechanics. I'm not afraid of breaking a nail, but I am afraid of flying into a fury and smashing everything in sight, something that seemed not far off at about ten this morning.
