Idlebones

Ben Folds Broke My Bike

I had Ben Folds on the radio, bike racked securely to the roof as I pulled out of the office in Galway a week or two ago. I didn’t really care how long it took, but I was heading for home for the weekend to put my feet up in front of the telly and enjoy a beer. First things first, though, I had promised myself 20 minutes to look around the water sports shop in town to check out some new boats before going home. If I left the office at 3, I told myself, 15 minutes to town and parking, 20 minutes drooling over the unaffordable, and 10 minutes back out to the main road home, I would have plenty of time to avoid the rush hour.

Feeling very smug at planning ahead so meticulously (for me), I turned into the multistory car park, utterly distracted by Ben Folds as usual, banging my steering wheel in time to him slamming his piano keys in ‘Last Polka’, just in time to see the womans mouth in the car behind suddenly disappear behind her hands as she stared at my roof. The dull thud, followed by a short pause, then a heavy blackboard scraping sound interrupted Ben’s big solo, as something shiny and metal flashed past my rear view mirror.As I stared into the mirror, a horrible sllow oil slick of realisation began to spread from the back of my neck. I pressed my head betwen my hands on the steering wheel and closed my eyes.

Now, normally I’m known for being a tad clumsy. Or more truthfully, plain reckless sometimes. Well, actually, all of the time. Things just don’t seem to last long around me. Things get dents were dents don’t belong. The long life light bulb I bought last week which lasted 2 hours, having failed to survive me screwing it in. This is why I refuse to spend big money on branded items like stereos, ipods etc. Because I will break them. Unfortunatly, when it comes to bikes or guitars, my refusals go unheeded.

There was my bike, in my left wing mirror, still partially attached to the roof bars, balanced akwardly agaisnt the barrier, like a shiny blue wounded Gazelle ripped down by lions. Or in this case, a maximum height barrier. I felt bloody sick. I got out of the car and went to inspect the damage. Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as i’d expected. The problem now was that i was inside the car park, and need to park, so i couldn’t put the bike back on the roof. Carefully, I seperated the bike from the bars and decided to put it on the back seat for the moment. Even more carefully, I took my guitar off the back seat and balanced it against the back of the car while I did this, planning to put it in sitting in the front passenger seat for the trip home.

Eventually, I got the bike into the car, protected with blankets like a sick child, and settled myself back into the drivers seat and breathed a sigh of relief that no more damage had been done to my prize possession. ‘Oh well’, I thought. ‘No one died’. I turned my CD back on and Ben broke into ‘My Philosophy’, as I pulled away from the barrier to the sound of my second favourite posession hitting the concrete with a loud twang behind the car.

On days like these, I should really just lock the door and hide behind the sofa. I have just realised that I have tickets to see Ben Folds in December in London. I’d better not bring anything flammable, breakable, soluable……..