The Observatory

In order to understand what I’m about to tell you, you have to realize that when I came home today and innocently went to wash my hands, I witness a positively HUGE spider crawling across the counter and into a nearby tupperware. And I don’t mean I just thought it was big. This thing had, legs included, about my thumb-length in diameter. For an inner-home setting, this was so unexpectedly huge that I actually jumped back and swore quite loudly (something I’m not prone to doing under normal circumstances). I alerted my mother to the situation and she came over. We suspected it was a baby wolf spider (it isn’t the first time one’s gotten into our house; though the last was more the size of my palm) and expressed our bewilderment at how it got into our home. Then, after looking at it for a while, we wondered… now what?

Seeing as it was already in a tupperware, I suggested getting a lid.

Mom couldn’t understand my need to not kill this creature with far too many eyes and legs. Honestly, I can’t blame her, as I’m not too keen on spiders myself. It looked big and out of place though (and unlikely to find its way back in despite the fact that it’d obviously managed it somehow the first time), and I disliked killing the last one despite it being a major violation to our living space and peace of mind. So I found a tupperware lid and, after securing that the spider could not escape, took it outside. It was actually pretty calm and slow-moving until I accidentally tapped the lid. Then it shot across the tupperware faster than I could blink. I managed to release it in a nearby planter though, even if it did require leaving the tupperware behind.

My mom didn’t like that I had released it so close to the house. She was sure it would get back in somehow and find her. Spiders always found her. My excuse that it was “too big” had a glaring hole that I was very aware of, and she swore that it would be back.

She was bringing a heavy basket of dishware into the kitchen when I heard her scream.

The situation played out as follows:

Mom: EEEEYYYAAAAAHHHH!
There is a huge crashing sound as everything she’s carrying is dropped.
Me, freaked out: What?! WHAT?!
Mom, beginning to laugh, sounding slightly relieved: Oh… oh, I thought it was a spider!
Me, still kinda freaked: What was it?!
Mom is still laughing.
Me: WHAT WAS IT?!
Mom is laughing too hard to answer, and when I look she’s leaning over with everything on the floor in front of her.
Me: You dropped everything for this, so what WAS it?
Mom, through her laughter: It was a zip-pull.
Me: … What?
Mom: It was a zipper pull!
Me, beginning to chuckle: Those aren’t even that big!
Mom, laughing harder: I thought it was a leg!

…That’s all I got.

Alright, so almost a week ago I moved into my college dorm suite, and yesterday I biked to campus with one of my suitemates to buy text books and a bike basket for myself. I wanted the bike basket because my college is very, very big, and I wouldn’t be able to carry my textbooks and bike to my classes otherwise. Fortunately our campus has a handy-dandy bike store, and fortunately they have a wide selection of bike baskets. They’ll install it for you too… however, you need to pay $10 extra.

This is where the problems started.

You see, when I entered the bike barn I’d just come from buying three of my textbooks, and while I’d heard schoolbooks were expensive I’d never realized exactly how expensive they were ($140 for my chem text alone, and that was used). For this reason I was hesitant to needlessly spend more money, and seeing as the guy at the store told me it was easy to install, I figured I’d do it myself. My suitemate was kind enough to carry my books and basket in her baskets and when we got home I borrowed my other suitemate’s toolkit and went to work.

Putting the basket together was easy. Attaching the basket to the front of my bike was also easy. Then, however, I had to attach the basket’s bottom supports. These were what kept my loaded basket from falling against my wheel and making me crash into something. They were kinda important. The problem was that I couldn’t figure out which screw they were supposed to connect to. After four trips up and down the stairs to retrieve different screw driver parts, between which I misguidedly unscrewed my brakes and failed to unscrew various other parts of my bike, I finally realized that the manual was referring to the screws that kept on my front wheel. Feeling a bit silly but happy that I’d figured it out, I made the attempt once again.
It was then that I realized my bike’s front wheel wasn’t kept on by screws. After a futile attempt of detaching the caps from my bikes front wheel and having them spin without any sign of coming off, I gave up. Tired, dejected, and overheated from working on asphalt during the hottest part of the day, I detached the bike basket and went to sulk in my room. I decided that I’d simply have to pay the $10 to have the basket installed and that would be that.

Unfortunately, it would seem things are never that simple. This morning I walked my bike across campus to the bike store (I couldn’t ride it while carrying the basket), but was told they couldn’t take ten minutes to install my basket for another two weeks. Classes start tomorrow, by the way, so obviously this wasn’t going to work. In a last ditch effort I laid my bike down on the grass after I left and attempted to get the infernal caps off again. When that didn’t work I locked it up and walked to the bookstore. Evidently walking around carrying a bike basket with a murderous look in your eye is a good way not to get approached, because no one tried to hand me flyers today. I decided to go back when I saw there was a line to get into the bookstore, and eventually calmed down and felt better after eating some lunch.

I’m not sure if it was during the walk back or when I was eating my Carl’s Junior Superstar, but I decided at some point that I refused to walk to classes for two weeks and, furthermore, that this was my chance to prevail in the face of adversity. After consuming my burger, I retrieved my bicycle and proceeded to screw the top part of the basket on by hand (admittedly not as hard as it sounds). I then proceeded to strap the basket to the front of my bike using my lock cord by stringing it around the steering bar, through the basket, back over the basket, under the handle bars, and back around the steering bar, just managing to lock the whole thing so the basket stayed in place. After testing my contraption to make sure it wouldn’t fall against my wheel (which, with the tension, it actually couldn’t), I merrily got on my bicycle and rode home, feeling incredibly accomplished and proud of myself. Hopefully it will pass the next test – carrying my books – so I’ll have a reliable transportation method for the next two weeks. Heck, if this works I may as well keep using it until November.