Today I returned to my car after riding a half hour (Torker LX 24) during my lunch break. Somehow the key to my VW Jetta had jumped out of my rain gear pocket. It was no where to be found. Adrenalin rush of a different sort…
During lunchtime, I’ve been riding on the sidewalk of Ruston Way in Tacoma, WA USA. It is a popular scenic stretch along Commencement Bay for walkers, joggers, fisherman, a few bicyclists and me. (There are probably other unicyclists but we never see each other.)
Today it was raining. So I had my rain pants and my rain jacket. And I know which pocket I stashed my key after beeping the car lock. Somehow it had managed to climb out and escape!
So I decided to retrace my roll. About half mile along, two women stopped me and asked if I had lost a key, before I had a chance to ask them… The told me how they had seen it in the middle of the sidewalk. They picked it up, but then after consulting with each other decided to leave it where they found it. I thanked them profusely and then continued on to the area they had described. Alas - no key was to be found! I went to the end of my path and started back to the car. Stopping to ask fisherman (not English speakers…) a postman, some waitresses at a restaurant, other walkers. Nobody had seen the key.
I’m headed to the next restaurant to inquire if someone had dropped a lost key off. (There are a string of restaurants down there…) Suddenly I hear someone shouting and I stop and turn around and… along comes this guy who has been searching for me to give me my key. He had picked it up and had come across the first two women who had told him about the unicyclist looking for a key (all dressed in yellow rain gear). I was ecstatic needless to say. He told me he’d been looking for me for 20 minutes or something. What good fortune for me. Clearly the guy earned his karma points today!
A couple of side notes. Today I learned that when I really need to get a quick unassisted mount - because I have a job to do like search for a missing object like a key - it seems to be there. Not sure if this will be true for everyone. I also learned that I’ve become known as the “unicycle guy” among the waitresses and the lunchtime crowd. Apparently people have been taking pictures with their phones. I know I’m going to get busted some day at work. (So that’s why you weren’t at the brown bag lecture to discuss the future of databases!) And finally, this adventure of mine probably wasn’t much more than a half hour - but it seemed like at least 6. A time warp. It worked out OK.
Happy New Year, everybody!