The Big Ass Bag, or A Lesson in Stupidity

22 March 2008

OK, so I'm getting Kermit ready to ride and I go to put the saddle bag on the new saddle. It's a clip-on bag that attaches to a bracket on the saddle rails by two screws. When I took the bracket off the old saddle, I didn't pay much attention to where it was. Now that I'm putting it on again, I can't get the damn thing to fit, no matter what I do. I take the old saddle and hold it next to the new one. I look for wear marks in the bracket. It seems like it ought to fit underneath the rails just fine, but it won't. The new rails are too wide.

I go online and order a new saddle bag, on sale for less than $10. I get a few other things I need to make the shipment worth it. When the bag arrives, it's much bigger than I thought it would be. I attach the Velcro straps and take a look. It really is far too big for what I need. When I load it, it's sitll almost empty. I guess I can fit a can of Red Bull in it, though. I might need that on a century. I say to Jack, in a facetious girly voice, "I wonder if that bag is gonna make my ass look fat." Verisimilitude.

Two days after the first day of spring, Kermit gets his debut on a Cranbury ride that Mike M. is leading. I carpool over with Mike B. and Cheryl. I mention to them that this new saddle bag is huge, but that means I can carry less in my jersey and more in the bag. "I wonder if it makes my ass look fat, though," I add.

A few miles into the ride, as we're all grouped together on some back road or another (eight years out here and I still don't know where I am), Mike B. calls out, "Hey, Laura, just to put this out there, that bag does make your butt look kinda big."

"Ooooooo!"

"Whoa!"

"Geez!"

"Mike!"

Chris says, "Laura, feel free to hit him over the head with a two-by-four."

"I've been wanting to do that for almost a year," I reply.

The Big Ass Bag:




The new saddle is too far forward. I'm sitting way back on it, and it's hitting my sit bones pretty hard. The cables have stretched since the bike was re-built in December, too, and the shifting is so sloppy that it takes ten seconds sometimes for the gears to respond to what the shifter is doing. I'm going straight to Ross' after the ride. If they move the seat back, maybe I can put the old saddle bag on. I like it better anyway.

A few more miles into the discomfort I ask Mike, "Did you say that thing about my ass just to get into the blog?"

"Sort of," he says, and explains that he didn't at the time but realized it would make good blog fodder so he was happy he said it. "My son reads it," he says.

"Does he call you up and say, 'Dad, you embarrassed yourself again'?"

"Yep."

[So, MVB, this entry is for you.]

Mike B. says something we all mishear.

"Immorality?"

"Immortality. The blog is making our rides immortal."

"And immoral."

"That, too."

I tell everyone that the blog is about self-deprecation. If the insult is funny, it's going in.

As we approach the Assunpink Wildlife Management Area, Chris begins one of his tirades about bad drivers in big cars. We've heard all of them before, of course, but that doesn't stop him. Back in January, when I suggested we don't give him any sugar at the rest stops, Cheryl proposed feeding him a duct tape sandwich. Chris liked that. He's good about it. If we holler, "Shut up, Chris!" he laughs and then we all do. Today I call out, "Duct tape, Chris, duct tape!" and we're all giggling.

We stop at Hoffmann's bakery in Allentown. The tables are too small for all of us to fit around, so we're taking up all but two. Talk turns to Eliot Spitzer's resignation. Mike M. says he's disappointed that the Governor resigned so quickly. "I was hoping for at least one more week of it on the news. It was entertaining." That's the problem, I tell him. All the media wants to talk about is sensational gossip about nothing important. "You know the song, Dirty Laundry, by Don Henley?" Nobody does.

On the way home I remember some of the lyrics. I can recall three verses, by which point Mike M. gets a glint of recognition. The song is about twenty-five years old. If anything, things are worse today than they were then. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Here's the whole song:

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something-something I can use
People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundry

Well, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I dont have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundry

Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em all around

We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
Its interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry

You dont really need to find out whats going on
You dont really want to know just how far its gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry

Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down

Kick em when theyre up
Kick em when theyre down
Kick em when theyre stiff
Kick em all around

Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybodys pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry

We can do the innuendo
We can dance and sing
When its said and done we havent told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!

Back in the parking lot Chris is still coughing up last week's cold. He's been hacking for the whole ride, and now he's leaning over his handlebars. "Are you all right?" people ask. "Have you been taking any medicine?" I ask him.

Getting his breath back, he says, "I'm coughing, so I don't need any cough medicine. It's when I stop that there's a problem."

"Why?" asks Mike M. "Because it means you're talking instead?"

"Ooooooo!"

"Whoa!"

"Geez!"

"Put that in the blog," Mike M. says.

When I get home I go straight to Ross' shop and get the saddle moved and the cables adjusted. Later in the afternoon I wander downstairs to see if I can get the old saddle bag onto the new saddle now that there's more room.

I still can't do it. How did I do this before? The rails on the new one are the same distance apart as on the old one. I move the bracket up and down the rails. There's only one spot where the two screws fit inside the rails, and that's way up on the back end, facing out. Surely that's not where I had it before. But that's where it's going to go now. I guess the bag is going to have to point straight down. We'll see. I screw in the bracket and attach the bag.

Duuuuuuuuh! It looks perfect. That's how it was on the old saddle, knucklehead! I'm such an idiot.

Anyone need an eight-dollar saddle bag? Butt-width enhancer included free of charge. Don't all shout at once.

The Ass-Girdle