A day in the life of a Community Bike

Kristin Mark                                                                                                     April 16, 2008

AED 408/Spring

 

The life in Cortland that I would not wish upon anyone else

 

 

            The creation of my existence is one that requires several pieces of metal, wire, and rubber.  The variety of parts of my being are melted, molded, shaped, chained, and nailed together to create my whole self. The finishing touches that complete me include being painted a pale yellow and being branded with letters spelling out “Mongoose.”  I am then sprayed with a product that causes me to shimmer and shine.  Shortly after this process, I am shipped overnight by UPS to SUNY Cortland.

            No story or picture could have prepared me for the harsh reality that I am soon to encounter.  Arriving to Cortland in the month of December, I have be stored in a cold, dark, and isolated storage room in a building called “PER” at least until the end of March.  Since I am still safely tucked and nuzzled in the large, brown cardboard box I was shipped in, I am completely clueless about the hazardous and atrocious weather conditions occurring right outside my door.  However, moments later I heard some whispering taking place behind me.  According to “Trek,” “the temperature drops below zero and it seems to snow for days on end…we could be stuck in here for weeks.”  Oh my goodness! I must be lost!  I must have been shipped to the wrong location.  What use would I, a mongoose mountain bike, be of in Central New York?

            March twenty second, one thirty in the afternoon: a key jiggles in the door knob and the door makes an unpleasant squeak as it is opened. A light is turned on which causes most of us to groan because we were not prepared for such brightness.  I hear foot steps getting louder as they approach the box I am stored in.  People are shifting us around as I overhear the words “community bikes.” I let the comment roll right off my wheel, for I am so ecstatic to finally be released!  Moments after I am gently lifted out of my box, this stranger attaches my front and back wheel to me with five bolts and three screws and pushes me a few feet before forcefully testing my brakes.  Before I know it, I am rolling down a long hallway.  The sun is getting brighter, for I feel myself quickly approaching the great outdoors. I am lead through a doorway and then I am outside for the first time in four months. Thank Goodness! I could not handle another minute in that stuffy room. Man, I hate the winter season. 

Oh the sights I am going to see here in SUNY Cortland! The mountains, the blue sky, the warm sun, a street called “Main Street,” and others just like myself.  This moment is the one I have been wa—wait a second. That trip was a short one. What is going on here? Where are the mountains?  Why is she chaining me to this metal contraption? Why is she walking away? Wait! She is turning around! She is coming back for me. Aha! I knew she made a mistake.  I watch her every move as I am hoping she wants to go for a ride, but her hair slides over her shoulders as she bends down to attach a sign to me. The sign simply states “Cortland Community Bike.” I wonder what the meaning behind this sign is. Have I been labeled?

Thirty two minutes pass when I am unlocked, sat on, and pedaling through the student parking lot which is very crowded this afternoon.  We glide through the cars making sudden twists and turns which scare the heart and soul out of me as we head to a destination I am unaware of. My companion for this moment in time changes my gears three times until he finds himself comfortably pedaling at a pace which is of no struggle for him. We work together to force ourselves up one of the biggest hills in Cortland where we pass the library and the campus Church, until we are rapidly gliding down Prospect avenue.

He tightens his grip on my handle bars and lightens his feet on my pedals. I feel free as a bird while the sun shines down on me and the wind blows against me.  I begin to realize that we are going a bit too fast for my liking.  Is this guy insane?! I was just brought outside today. Doesn’t he know that I need to test the waters?  We are going way to fast, I start to panic and I cannot help but shout “Why isn’t he brakinnnnnnggggggg?” as we fly down Prospect Avenue.  Abruptly we stop and my brand new wheels leave tire marks on the newly cemented sidewalk.  Without any sort of respect at all, he tosses me onto the grass outside of this blue mansion on Tompkins Street, and walks into the house.  My wheels are still spinning as I am laying on my side. He does not return. Ever. I am left outside and in the dark all alone for the rest of the night.  What have I signed myself up for?

In the middle of the night, a girl comes along and decides she needs to go to Glass Tower.  We travel along Tompkins Avenue and up Sands Street until we reach the campus.  I have helped her to her destination as she places me against the stone wall in front of the building.  Twenty six minutes later I am sat on again. However, I do not think this biker is sober.  He wobbles all over the street, bumps me into a car, twice, and then gets so mad, as if I had something to do with his consumption of alcohol, that he slams me into the side of Whitaker Hall.  By now, my front tire is bent, two bolts have been loosened, and paint has already been chipped by my back tire.  To top it all off, it begins to snow as the temperature rapidly decreases throughout the night.  My first day on the job and I would do anything to be stuffed in bubble wrap and back into that cardboard box.

 

 

 

Does this piece end too abruptly?  Should anything else be tweeked?

 

 

Kristin

A Day in the Life…

So, I really enjoyed writing this piece. I hope all of you did as well. Here it is!

 

DO NOT LEAVE LAPTOPS UNATTENDED EVEN FOR A MINUTE! ONE WAS STOLEN FROM THE LIBRARY ON 4/7/08!

 

            I hung up that sign. Awfully awkward to publicize a crime that you committed personally. Almost equally awkward was the staff meeting where those of us on duty last Monday were chastised for our inattentiveness.

            Ruth, the head librarian scolded us: “Your jobs are not that difficult! You check books in, you check books out. You check laptops in, you check laptops out! Four of you were on duty when a fourteen hundred dollar piece of technology was stolen! Explain to me how this might have happened!

            Amber chimed in, “I was paying close attention all night—I swear it! I checked in some laptops, but I made sure that I did them all properly.”

            Eric’s turn: “I didn’t handle a single laptop during my entire shift. I was in the back doing inventory.”

            “I was returning books to the stacks all night,” explained Jon.

            As for me, I kept silent. I let everybody else explain themselves first, totally aware of their distress. When Ruth asked, “Allen?” I stated simply: I have no idea what happened.” That was enough to satisfy the naïve librarian.

            Oh, I have an idea of what happened, alright. I know what happened. Monday evening, I checked a laptop out to a pretty girl in tight jeans and a low cut tank top. Abby, I think her name was. I told her it would be due back in three hours and she thanked me. Then, I waited.

            I waited for exactly two hours and forty-eight minutes for sweet young Abby to return the laptop. I told her, “You’re all set” before scanning it back in, and she left, unsuspecting of the impending crime. I brought the laptop into the storage room, where I conveniently kept my book bag that day. I carefully slipped the computer out of its bag and right into mine, shelved the empty bag, and continued with my shift until eleven o’clock p.m. Beautiful thing about working until eleven at night is that after the shift, only one person comes on duty. So, I waited until Amber, Eric, and Jon went home, refusing a ride back to the dorm from Eric, and fished the laptop cord out of its bag. I was so pissed that I forgot to get it earlier. I shoved it into my bag, said goodnight to Gretchen, our relief, and walked toward the door. The security alarm went off, but it always does for no apparent reason and Gretchen just giggled and I exited.

I came into work on Wednesday and was greeted by an angry librarian who wanted to have a staff meeting. I expressed ignorance and she went back to work, bewildered.

“The last student to take out that laptop was Abigail Richardson,” said Ruth, startling me as I was shelving books in the Teaching Material Center.

“Yeah?” I said, as I dropped a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and struggled to swallow a lump that was suddenly in my throat.

“When I called her yesterday to inquire about the laptop, she broke down and cried, insisting that she definitely returned the laptop.”

Oh, shit. I hope she didn’t mention that she returned it to me. Shit. Shit. Shit. I felt my entire body heat up, especially my face. My plan was foolproof–there was no way that I was going to get caught.

“She returned it to you, Allen.”

“Oh…did she? Someone must have stolen it from the storage room after I checked it in.”

“It was never checked in, Allen.”

“Hm… I must have forgotten to make sure the scanner worked. You know how bipolar that thing is. Never works when you want it to, and sometimes it starts scanning people!” I was getting more and more nervous every second. I think she believes me. I hope she believes me.

 “Allen, if you do not want to lose your job, you will explain to me why Gretchen heard the alarm go off as you left, the same night that we lost a laptop.”

“I told you, I don’t know what happened to the laptop. And that alarm always goes off at the wrong times, just like the scanner. I have no idea what happened.”

“Alright, Allen, just so you know, any loss of over twelve hundred dollars is considered a serious crime. So, in fifteen minutes, the university police will be searching the dorm rooms of all of Monday’s patrons, as well as every library employee.

Shit.

 

 

Krystina

I’m a Treadmill!!

I thought I would post my “Day in the Life” piece and see what you all think! Here it is (the title is still a work in progress):

A Hectic, Spinning Life

 

When I arrived at SUNY Cortland I soon learned that it was a school made of many jocks. My “reasons-for-being” range from athletes, the obese, and the exercise-obsessed to students who just aren’t good at anything but sports. They all flocked to the Cortland campus with the same dream: to get their degree, usually in teaching, and eventually become a success. I came to Cortland unintentionally and unwillingly. I wanted to be in a new technical gym where the highest paid trainers coach celebrities and millionaire sports stars. I wanted to mean something. I wanted to be loved.

The college gym: often considered a torturous place visited by many students in an attempt to balance out the extra calories gained over another carefree weekend. For me, it’s home. Many come here to find balance, others to relieve stress, a few for the social aspect, and some, like me, are here to work. As I begin to spin at an increasing speed, I am thankful for the lightless of the tiny girl using me. While I am quite gracious, I am also surprised that her poor brittle bones do not snap with each step she takes. It’s the typical problem I see with girls, a body image problem that leads to unnecessary dieting and excessive exercise. They overuse me, but I don’t mind the familiarity I have gained from their daily visits. Some call it anorexia, she calls it a way of life, I call her a friend.

My next runner is, sadly, the opposite of my previous user: overweight. I have never seen her before or felt the heavy pressure of her unused Nikes. When I prepare my body for this workout, I hear her groan to the girl next to her, “I shouldn’t have had that fried fish and chips before we came.” Her distress takes me back to the truck I was transported in. I remember being in the drive-thru line where I overheard the driver ordering in front of me: “I’ll have a double cheese burger meal super sized with a diet coke.” I can’t help but think, Why bother? I did not understand this silly American way of life until I arrived here from China. I mean, why not spare me the stress and the continuous pounding pain?

My next visitor steps on with confidence and determination. I haven’t seen her in a few days, but I know that she will be good to me. She does not come here for appearance or to fit in, she comes here for health. These are my favorite clients. They understand my smooth handles, bright buttons, and gripped conveyer belt. They don’t hate me or use me for their own violent addiction. They utilize me for my true purpose: to provide an effective means for exercise. Yes, I am a treadmill.

 

Stacia