Conversations with my LBS

That’s “local bike shop,” for those of you not hep with the lingo. In this case, Get a Grip. I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to call this morning to get an update on Sálome’s health status, to see if she could have visitors, etc. As always, when relaying these conversations, I feel compelled to also give you the relevant subtext, as I’m good at reading people that way:

GAG guy, answering phone: “Get a Grip Cycles, this is Rick, can I help you?”
Me, meekly: “Umm....is Kevin there?”
GAG Rick: “Unfortunately he’s not – can someone else help you?”
Me: “I’m just calling to see how Sálome is doing – I mean my Felt...the Felt B12......this is Tash..”
GAG Rick: “Oh, Tasha, of course! Hold on a sec....let me check with Matt.”
YCBG Matt, clearly speaking with adoration in his voice: “Hey, Tasha, how are you?”
Me: “I’m fine, how are you? And Sálome, how’s Sálome? How’s she feeling? Better? All better?” (While I know that you’re the go-to person for everything at GAG, I also fully recognize that some people are intimidated by speaking to someone of my stature, so I’m making it easy for you to figure out what I need to know. I’m helpful that way.)
YCBG Matt: “Oh, sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier this week about the bike." (I throw myself at your mercy.) “I had to wait to talk to Kevin about which aerobars to put on.” (Remember Kevin? He got married 2 weeks ago, and barely had a honeymoon because of you silly people. Well, not speaking about you here. But everyone else.)
Me, magnanimously: “Oh, not a problem at all.” (I’m cutting you some slack because you’re YCBG Matt.) “And....and......umm......any word on the unsightly ghastly blemish (I'm whispering, lest I be too vocal about the fact that I’m a dumbass).
YCBG Matt: “The what?”
Me, sotto voice: “The blemish. You know.....the flaw.” (Yes, I’m an idiot. Didn’t we all know that already?)
YCBG Matt: “Ah, that. We ordered a new fork from Felt, so it should be here any day now. Kevin talked to the 2nd-most guy at Felt (and regaled him with stories about our moronic customers), so it’s a priority item.” (We know how you are. God forbid we should fix it in-house, and then....well, we just know. Better to start fresh. That’s something we all quickly agreed on. It’s much cheaper this way in the long run.)
Me: “A new...new.....you mean.......she’ll be back to her original state of perfection?” (What?? I get a do-over? Okay, wait, I have terminal cancer, don’t I, and no one wants to tell me. That’s it, isn’t it...)
YCBG Matt: “Yes, so just tell me how you want to do this. Since it’s a paint issue and not structural damage, I can change the aerobars and you can have the bike to lessen the disruption to your training plan, and then we can change the fork when that comes in.” (Again, god forbid we should in any way mess with your training plan, which apparently thus far consists of sitting around breathing deeply and doing a push up or two. But who are we to question your obvious success? Obvious in a theoretical way, that is. But really, the last thing we want is to stand in the way of such triathlon greatness. Deeper subtext: Plus we know full well that if we have this bike a second longer than you deem necessary, we’ll never hear the end of it. All summer long, there on your blog, it’ll be “Oh, I’m sure I could have placed first in my AG instead of 234th, if only I had gotten my bike back from GAG a day earlier. Oh, what could have been...” This is why the goal of every single person here at GAG is to get this bike back to you ASAP. Trust us on that.)
Me, mulling over this concept of my “training plan”: "........oh, right, sorry, I started woolgathering there. Well, I don’t want to be a pain...”
(thought bubble over YCBG Matt’s head: “WAY too late for that...”)
Me: “.....but maybe I could get it by Tuesday? Would that work?”
YCBG Matt: “Whatever works for you.” (We want to keep you happy, because of course we live for customers like you. Truly. Who do some asinine thing and then come in with their bikes and shove them at us and say “fix this” – and we do. In large part because of the entertainment value. We still haven’t decided which wacky thing you’ve done has been more amusing, though the sticker thing is way up there. But then how can one decide, when there’s the time you fell on your bike (again) and somehow managed to land in such way that you bent the dérailleur into your spokes? That was a new one on us. I think we sent that one into Dumbass Cyclists Weekly, though in all honesty, we like the challenge that your goofups present for us. They happen so regularly that we make the new guys fix them – kind of like an initiation rite. Then there’s the time you duct taped the wires from your bike computer to the bike. Yeah, duct tape. Jason laughed so hard at that one that now every week he comes in and asks “Has Tasha been in yet this week? What’d she do this time?” Good times.)

So there you have it, folks. The Willy Wonka do-over (“rewind, reverse”), courtesy of GAG. Needless to say, we will never speak of the blemish again, as I prefer to pretend it never happened. There’s just so much of my own stupidity that I can handle being reminded of.