Living the Dream

There seems to be a lot of hype surrounding bicycle messengers right now. Track bikes are flying off the shelves at bike shops. Everyone and their little brother has a Chrome or Timbuk2 bag. There are alley-cat races happening in most every city in the country, even some cities that don't have bike messengers. It may seem like a pretty glamorous life, riding your bike downtown all day, flowing in and out of traffic, looking cool.
For the most part, it is a pretty great job. But, every once in a while, you get a big dose of reality. This happened to me the other day.
So I was getting dressed for work, and I took a look at my pants, which were getting pretty worn in the seat area. This was one of my last pairs of pants which were still wear-able. I thought to myself "man, good thing I get paid in a couple days, because I need to buy some new pants". I put them on, went downtown, and started picking up my first set of the day. I was picking up four north of the river, all going into the loop. My first pick up was supposed to be a 5-pound, bikeable box. I went into the clients office, and found out that it was a computer packed into a box with styrofoam to protect it. So it was more like 15 pounds and too big to fit into my bag. Kind of a hassle, but nothing I couldn't handle. I got out to the street, put the box on my handlebars, and started to one-hand it to my next pickup. It was kind of awkward getting up onto my seat, and I ended up catching the already compromised tail of my pants on the nose of my seat, and I could hear the fabric rip. I waited until I got to my next stop to assess the damage, and it really wasn't too bad. Just a little tear that I could barely fit my finger into. I made my next two pickups, and started to ride to my last pickup before I would head into the loop and start dropping. On the way, I had an incident with one of those big metal plates the city puts down when they are working on the roads. I didn't go down, but I was still one-handing the box, and wound up sticking the nose of my seat into the hole in my pants and ripping even more. I still didn't want to believe that the situation was that bad, so I went into the building, and made my pickup, a 3' square flat. I grabbed it, cursing under my breath when I tried to figure out how I was going to one-hand the flat, carry the box on my bars, and steer my bike. On the elevator down, I turned around to look at my pants in the mirrored doors. I was horrified to see that there was now a huge gash in the back of my pants. I got back out onto Michigan Avenue and called my dispatcher to explain my predicament. He felt for me, but didn't have anyone in position to help out. He asked what I wanted to do. I was standing in the middle of one of the busiest shopping districts in the country, the Magnificent Mile. But I only had $7.00 to my name, so there was no way that I was going to be able to buy pants at any of the high-end stores I was surrounded by. I told him that I realy didn't see any choice but to drop my freight in the loop and then book out to the Goodwill on Racine. I took a couple of inner-tubes out, and used them to strap the computer to the outside of my bag. This let me take the flat in one hand, and still be able to steer my bike with the other. By this point the tear had gotten so big that my seat was inside my pants, and a gentle breeze was blowing in, which really didn't feel that bad. I got rid of the flat easy enough because it was a quick drop. The computer was going to 181W. Madison, which is a busy building where messengers have to drop their bags. I had been wearing my bag low up to this point, to try to conceal the hole. I gave the guard my ID, dropped my bag on the floor, and walked to the elevators. I kept my back to the wall as much as possible, made my drop, and got the hell out of there. I rushed out to the Goodwill and found a decent pair of pants for $5.00. After changing into them in the mens room, I was on my way back downtown to make my other two drops and continue on with my day.