Winter Shart Tarck Series '21: Race Four, You Thought Last Week Was the Worst Preamble Ever?

Watching the weather forecast last week was like watching paint dry... a paint that never dries... and ruins everything it touches.  I don't understand how cyclo ross bike racer peoples get all boner stoked on riding through diarrhea mud in the winter week after week.

At least I only had to be "The Mustache" at work for the first half of the day all week (first time after two months of full time staching), so it wasn't a forty hour week of total turd life casuing additional life force drain.

But anyways, the prospect of my next nine days off starting with a cold, wet Saturday, a cold wet race day, and then a shit-tastic week of fuck me weather did nothing to lift the spirits.  By the time Saturday morning rolled around, I was literally begging The Pie to let me accompany her to Target and Trader Joe's.  I'd been banned from the weekly hoarding trip after misbehaving on a pre-holiday sortie when I insisted on a crack of dawn attack with an "in and out and no one gets hurt" battle plan.

Apparently working from home full time and having 99% of your normal life canceled makes you want to enjoy the little things, like talking to a total stranger about Glade Plug-Ins on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

I didn't get it... until this past Saturday... when I woulda been totally stoked to talk to a toddler about his favorite Pop Tart flavors in the breakfast food aisle.

"Blueberry?  Bitch, please."

So after a very exciting stop at the Goodwill Store where I found a pair of PANTS to replace my '92 acid washed dad jeans for doing trail work and crawling around on my roof, I totally didn't mind standing in the vitamin aisle at Target doing some comparison shopping... because at least I wasn't standing in my living room looking out the window at the when-the-fuck-is-it-ever-gonna-stop rain.

I threw a fifteen pack of All Day IPA in the cart along with my adult chewable vitamins.  We got home.  I went back to staring out the window.  Should I just not ride my bike the day before Shart Tarck?  That's not what I did last week when I felt better than I ever have.  Obvs I have all the gear to go ride in the rain, but do I want to?  Knowing I'm going to do it semi-unwillingly the next day?  I might be desperate and do it how many days this week?

I put on my backyard flip flops, walked around the outside of the house (in the rain, obvs) to the crawlspace/murder room and dragged The Pie's trainer out of its crypt.  This object that vexes me so.

My tarck bike is the only thing that works in it aside from the shell of a bike that I assembled for her to use on this torture device when we got it for her to get over a running overuse injury.  I only used it once, around the same time that The Interview came out.  I thought I could watch the entire movie whilst... doing... this?  It's just like riding a bike, except...

What an insanely awful experience.  Needless to say, I finished the majority of the movie from my couch. 

This time, it took me longer to set everything up than the actual "ride" lasted... again.  Need a block of wood for the front wheel.... need a fan... need to figure out where to mount the unfortunately shortened resistance adjuster... need a place to set my beer... need an extension cord so I can watch Big Mouth...

I needed to stop after fifteen minutes because I realized that after my tarck bike sat outside the big buildings all week in the rain, I'd just jizzled lube all over the chain... and now it's spraying all over the floor and the wall behind me.

I can see why people snap selfies on the trainer.  Anything that can break up the monotony of taking something that you love and reducing it to self-flagellation seems like plenty of motivation to find any distraction that might take up as few as twenty seconds.

I lasted forty minutes.  That includes the time it took to clean the grease spots off everything... the first time.

The rest of the night was spent watching a Quentin Tarantino documentary... which then inspired The Pie to pull up Inglorious Basterds... which meant that buying All Day IPA at Target mighta been the smartest thing I did all day.

I told myself.

BTW: I can see why people are always selling these things used online.

BTW BTW:  Bless your heart if this is how you do what you do.  You're a better (different?) human than me.