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Kansas City Irish Festivals, Music, Pubs, & Events by an Artist in Ireland

Here’s something that made me laugh. Because life in Ireland was like this for me all the time before I moved to Kansas City.

It’s a moment from yesterday. And when I say yesterday I should point out that working through two nights in a row means I don’t know what yesterday refers to. I don’t think it means yesterday.

So I’m packing. In the traditional sense rather than the concealed weapon sense.

And I’m just starting my last roll of tape.

With no definite time for the truck to arrive and haul my life away the following morning I assume I have x hours left to pack and only a few of those with the shops still open selling tape.

Too much of a risk to think this 36 yards of tape will suffice having just used 110 yards. So a forced break from packing is necessary as I trip to the store. But it’s not that simple.

Long Grass, my bicycle, is in the container so I must use a borrowed bike.

Because I got 6 punctures in my final week of cycling in Kansas City (very unusual and the highest number I’d suffered in such a short time for 11 years) I received several offers of a lend of a bicycle. All of them were female - which I think says something about men and their machines.

And to aid movement with all the packing and lifting I am wearing shorts. Football shorts. Barcelona ones I bought in Dublin.

And when I say aid movement I mean I’ve eaten too much rubbish over the summer months of heat for anything else to not impede movement. It’s a good time for me to reflect that while I might be short and unremarkable of waistline in America, when I step off that plane in Dublin I will grow in stature immediately to a height of normal. And I’ll also be fat.

Unlike my swimming shorts bought in America, my football shorts are not covered in pockets. It seems the makers think you are actually going to play soccer in them. So I hook my keys onto my right sandal - the one where they can easily get caught in the chain as they flop all over the place.

Leaving America because I am poor I am reminded that I have no cash. But I can’t hold my credit card wallet and cycle at the same time. The last time I could do that I was of an age when they don’t give you credit cards. In Ireland. I think they give you them in America.

But I have this great idea that because I have been working so much the sweat I am drenched in will keep my plastic wallet stuck in place if I just tuck it inside my shorts and underwear. Remember, there is extra pressure these days in the waist department. Worst case scenario is that the wallet falls to the ground. And I don’t notice the falling. Heck that would be bad. Anyway, waist not, want not.

And look, I forgot I need air in both tyres. Now which box of the 79 did I pack the pump in? Oh well it’s only a short trip; I can survive on low air. It’s not like I’m breathing the stuff.

But something else is wrong as I cycle. Ah yes, my knees are blocking my view. That explains the pains in my upper legs as I get off to raise the saddle. Quick release levers are so handy. Especially for saddle thieves - who are, I’ll grant you, non-existent in Kansas City but a mass movement with their own union back in Ireland.

I stop my gentle coaxing of the saddle upwards when I am holding the saddle in my hands. Unattached to the bicycle that is, and unattached to the stem.

By now I could have walked to the shop and back, but I like a challenge. Especially when I should be doing something else. Seat stems unmoved for a very long time are not always up for the moving, quick release lever or not. Eventually I managed to reattach the saddle but no joy in moving the seat stem to raise the saddle. Which didn’t seem so important anymore because now the seat was in swivel mode.

So with my keys flopping around my foot and the chain, and the low-aired tyres bumping me to remind me of their existence, and the newly returned pains in my upper legs, I cycled to the shop, the automatic swiveling seat actually helping me peep past the view obstructed by my rising knees.

And then I notice something I haven’t noticed on a bicycle for a long time. Paris in the spring. I mean the warm wind in my hair. I am cycling without a helmet for the first time in more years than I can remember.

Not a conscious decision. Moments earlier I had the helmet in both of my hands and was raising it I believe to my head. Perhaps I automatically put it in a box and then sealed it? This would be a stupid time to die I was thinking. Especially with no health insurance.

Incidentally, for those of you who think cycling in a helmet looks stupid, you are right. The Viz once gave the tip of getting a melon, and using the skin from a quarter of it on your head instead of a helmet. Just as aerodynamic, and looks just as stupid. My helmet before last split in two that time me and my helmet met a truck that was going 50mph. I’ve always been glad it wasn’t my head that split in two.

While trying harder than usual not to die something happened. All the random seat swiveling dislodged my credit card wallet. Actually it only dislodged half of the wallet because the Bank of Ireland wallet wasn’t intended for so many American cards and finally split into two. And that’s when I laughed.

Some of my credit cards were now covering something I never expected credit cards to cover, and cycling whilst trying to control the movement of your private parts is a talent I’m not as good at as I might give the impression of.

And then I remembered. This is what it used to be like all the time.

See More Nonsense of This Ilk:
   • An Irish Odyssey in Kansas City
   • Cycling Down The Delmarva Peninsula
   • Purple Haze: 119th Street Town Center

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 8:49 am and is filed under 1-eolai, Meanderings, Travel. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.