bicycle

This morning I was excited. It was 5:30am, I had my MP3 player and UCard in hand, and on my way to the gym.

I had a plan: Two hours at the gym, then shower, and then skip over to the law school for my first day of class.

So, now it’s 5:40am. Ten minutes later. The excitement is still palpable. I have my MP3 player in hand and I’m going to the gym. Almost there.

And then I stop – where the hell is my Ucard?

I managed to lose my student ID within a few blocks of leaving my house.

After a several colorful utterances and about 20 minutes of walking around like a deranged person – looking for the card that somehow slipped out of my hand – I gave up.

I went home, changed, and then went to the law school.

So I’m standing before the library before I realize that I don’t have access because, dum, dum, da… I lost my Ucard.

So I throw my books back into my locker and march across the half-condemned Washington Avenue bridge to the student union. I arrived 15 minutes before the Ucard office opened and was sixth in line.
Butch Ucard Lady: This your first card?
Me: No, I lost my old one this morning. I’m starting the semester off with a bang!
She glares.

Twenty minutes later I’m back in the now-packed library. Immediately before class it got to the uncomfortable level where people used short bookshelves as standing laptop tables. There was also a steady soundtrack of flip-flop smacks and messenger bags banging-against-butts. Shuffle Shuffle SMACK SMACK.

And of course, the 2 and 3L’s catching up. “HEY HOW WAS YOUR SUMMER?”

So, the first class was Contracts. I sat in the 2nd row, closest to the teacher. There are two reasons for this: 1, I don’t care if the instructor is seizing on the floor, if someone in front of me is playing games on their laptops I will be thoroughly distracted.

And 2, the instructor kept walking slightly behind my chair and could see my screen. Unauthorized use of the internet (IMing, surfing, etc.) is a honor code violation that I’m highly unlikely to do when the instructor is glancing at my screen every three minutes. Self policing. Besides, I wouldn’t want to be distracting-prick-dude to the people behind me by playing on the laptop.

The class was fine. The professor’s line of questioning seemed tangential at times, but it always brought up new, interesting hypothetical situations. Some of us stayed to ask the professor questions. Yay.

Stella and I had lunch at this nearby campus eatery. Beef tenderloin entrée and a drink for $9. Yes.

$9 is still impractical for a daily lunch, but I’ll tackle that next week.

Stella went to her international student orientation and I went back to the library.

My second and last class of the day was Torts. My torts professor is witty but challenged those he called on less than the contracts professor.

He also gave semi-mean hypos. “You there, student, what if I punched you in the nose?”

But he did it with a smile, so we forgave him. We had a seating chart in that class, which I’m less thrilled about because I’m behind too many laptops. I found, though, at the laptops are small enough to be covered by the owner’s back.

Since all 200+ first years were in the library after class, I decided to go to the gym…since I couldn’t this morning.

And this was a bad idea.

It took my gym partner and I over an hour to get to the gym (mutual meandering). By the time we got there it was peak time and all of the cardio equipment had to be reserved for 30minute blocks. Getting on anything was an ordeal. The weight machines and free weights were equally congested.

I did leg weights while trying my best to ignore ridiculous looking overweight-black guy doing arm curls on a resistance machine while perched on a gym ball.

He made a “I FEEL THE BURN FACE” and dramatic huff with every curl.

There was also Intense Asian lady who looked like she was screaming (the facial movement but no sound) with every weight pump. It looked like she was excising demons or reliving a painful birthing experience.

After carefully avoiding eye contact at the weight machines I underwent the process to receive my cardio machine ration.

The whole experience was special.

I also decided in the locker room that it was time to get a bike. Why? Because unlike my undergrad gym, which had shower stalls, this gym has one big honking room of nudity.

Hells-the-nah.

So I need to get a bike to efficiently go between my house and the gym since I only make private shower  appearances.

After the gym ordeal I went home, but I decided that instead of showering, I should just go directly to Target. I would bike home, and get sweaty anyway.

This was, of course, another bad idea.

The temperature had already dropped to around 65. And the bus took so long that Stella managed to shower, pack, and walk past me before it came.

Great.

I get on the bus, cold yet funky, and all the seats have at least one person. So I sit on the very edge of this seat. The girl could tell I was embarrassed to play Mr. Public Transit BodyOdor.

The bus takes me downtown to Target, which is surrounded by cop cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck.

Great.

I walked past the cars and the scene at the cash register where about a dozen officials crowded around a woman on the floor. I had no time to watch the police drama – I needed a bike.

And, since today was a very special day, it took over an hour to buy a bike. First, there was no price on the bike I wanted. The first Target lady, who spoke English – just not coherently – got Sassy Pregnant Target lady, who called Smells like Nicotine (SLN).

Mr. SLN scanned the bike. It’s 89.99. I ask him why it’s $90 when the ones next to it are $270 and $160.
SLN: “Brand mostly.”
Me: “Those aren’t exactly Gucci.”
SLN: “Schwinn is the Gucci of bicycles.”
Then random creepy decrepit dude shows up and becomes personally invested in my bicycle purchase. Apparently he’s an expert and therefore gives his opinion on brands of bicycles to locks.
Random Creepy Decrepit Dude: That bike lock is sort of cheesy.
Me: Well, I’m a law student. It’s time I look the part.
My choice of lock offended Mr. Decrepit enough that he flung his hands in the air and walked off.

Now of course there was a missing part for the bicycle seat. Mr. SLN radios it in and the warehouse guys must have been smoking something severe to give the response they did… it takes 10 minutes to get a new bike from “the back.”

And of course the tires need air. Add 10 more minutes.
Guy filling up my tires: “Oh, and it’s illegal to drive at night without lights on the bike. We don’t sell those by the way.”
Great.

It wasn’t completely dark when I left Target, but close. It was also colder.

It hadn’t occurred to me that I hadn’t had a bike in oh, 9 years, until I was outside with my new $198 Schwinn. I wondered for a second if I forgot how to ride…

And in downtown Minneapolis the bike lanes are in the middle of the road. It was a fun trip home.

After FINALLY showering I went to the local bike store and bought reflectors, which took me 15 minutes to put on the bike because I’m a space cadet.

I finally arrived at the law school around 9pm and found out that my new Ucard doesn’t work for the law building. I convinced another student that I wasn’t a local crazy and he let me in.

My card, bizarrely, works for the law library, just not the building that the library is in.

I finished my contracts homework quickly. Book briefing. Yay.

I then biked to McDonalds and read most of the legal writing assignment.

Because of the extraordinary waste of time today, I will spend my breaks tomorrow playing catch up (really, starting off with a bang eh?) and then, after class, I will sleep, sleep, till I can’t sleep no more so that Friday can go as scheduled.

Night!