Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Thursday, 27 January 2005

# 3:20 AM

On Sunday I went to Lafayette to see my mother and my grandmother, and I did this by bicycling to 24th and Mission and then taking BART the rest of the way, leaving my bicycle locked up at 24th and Mission. We had lunch and I showed them my hiking photos and tourist photos and party photos and we had a lovely time. But when I got back to 24th and Mission I discovered that some kind of a gonif had come by and removed the seat from my bicycle.

Well, there being not much to do about this but go and get a new one, on Tuesday I took my car to the mechanic, which has needed doing for some time, and then I walked back home stopping at one of the bike shops on Valencia Avenue. The salesman said, son, what do you need? and I said, I need this here seat and a tube to go with it, because some kind of a gonif walked off with my old one. The salesman said, do you have your bike with you? and I said, no, but I can tell you it is a two-year-old Marin Larkspur. He said, wait here, and he went in the back with the catalogues and the repair manuals and the spare parts, and he came out with a seat tube. He said, son, what you need is a twenty-seven-point-oh millimeter tube and here it is. And I thanked him kindly and I paid for the seat and the tube and I took them home.

Today I got out my bicycle and my Allen wrenches and the new seat and tube and I tried to put them all together but the tube would not fit in the hole. I called Michael over and the two of us applied brute force but the tube still would not fit. So we looked the tube over very carefully and what did we see but an engraving saying clearly this is a twenty-seven-point-two millimeter tube.

And I suppose there is not much to do about this but take it back to the store on Valencia Avenue and tell that salesman, chummer, you said this was a twenty-seven-point-oh millimeter tube but it isn't. Tomorrow.