A Lost Light

Riding the bike to work has become routine now. Several of my co-workers are in amazement and awe that I would do such a thing. They ask where I lock up my bike, and I laugh and say it's the $30 bike in the parking garage with a $70 chain around it.

Today, however, when I got home and rolled the commuter bike up the porch stairs I noticed one of the Planet Bike Super Flash blinkies had separated from it's base and fallen off somewhere along my route. Crap........ I had paid eighteen bucks each for those. There was nothing to do but retrace my route.

I ran a strip of Scotch tape around the seam of the remaining blinkie, climbed back on my bike and began to pedal back to the hospital. I scanned the pavement along the way where I had just ridden the bicycle thirty minutes previously. Would the light be lying crushed by a car's tires? Would it be picked up by a curious bum? At each intersection, especially the ones with a rough bump, I scoured the tarmac. Thankfully, the sun was still out.

As I neared the train tracks that intersect my route, a freight train was thundering through. I had to wait in the sun, bathed in the rushing clackety clack the speeding train pounded out on the rails. Then.... Between the wheels, I spotted the Super Flash. It was still blinking brightly among the ballast.

As the freight train's horn wailed in the distance, the last car passed, and I rescued my blinkie. I placed it in the bag inside my rear basket. When I got home, it too received a strip of Scotch tape around the seam.