I become a complete useless mess without a car

I’ve been without a car for two days and I’m starting to feel like a trapped badger.  I have been surviving off of oatmeal and saltwater taffy because there is nothing else in my house to eat. 

I have a bicycle.  I use it every day.  But I use it for one purpose – getting to and from work – and I can’t bring myself to get back on it and head down to the university for food court fare.  And I can’t be bothered to bike the two blocks beyond that to go and get a proper meal out.  Even the allure of the just-out-of-walking-distance McDonald’s isn’t enough to surmount my reluctance to go undo the stupid bike lock.  (Actually, I’d totally do that, but I’m off of Diet Coke now and what’s the point of McDonald’s without a Diet Coke?  And it was only a dollar – oh, what have I done…?)

Besides, some idiot has been running this chain of fire hoses right across the middle of my bike route – for what purpose I can’t begin to fathom, and I’m just praying that’s water flowing through that pipe – for the past three days and the joint between two hoses is poorly sealed so the whole area’s flooded and there’s a new thick layer of loose gravel through it because some other idiot decided that filling all our carefully tamped paths with shovelfuls of dirt would allow us to float miraculously over the ever-expanding lake—

That sentence got too long.  The point is that gravel moves and desert bikes do not have splash guards on their tires so one must bike quite slowly through this sludge to keep from spraying mud all up one’s backside.  I have not yet accomplished cleanliness because either: a) I end up going too slow and getting mired and having to put my foot down in the water, or b) I go too fast and we’ve already addressed the problem with that.

So here I am and I’m hungry and I’m sad that I can’t go out and get any dinner.  I’d call in delivery but I’m not dressed for it now that my only remotely clean pair of pants is in the washer de-muddifying. 

(Yes, one should dress properly for the delivery guy at the door.  I once worked at a Dairy Queen and it was totally inappropriate when some guy pulled up to the drive-thru totally naked.  And when I went door-to-door in middle school to get donations for AIDS Walk, the bear-man who answered the door in a towel still dripping from the shower was equally disturbing.  I’m not saying I’m on a level with these guys, but still.  Boxers are not door-opening clothes.)

Maybe I’ll try chunky peanut butter oatmeal.

P.S. – Savory oatmeal is not all it’s cracked up to be.  Especially not with tomatoes and basil and oregano and garlic.  You’d think it might work, and the website said to think of it like risotto, but it is not risotto.  Not risotto at all. 

But I’d probably make the attempt again right now if I had tomatoes.