Riding a Saw

            On Monday morning I woke up at 4:51, got up to pee and was back in bed by 4:52. Over the next ten minutes I dreamed that my late bike mechanic Agostino Logiudice, who committed suicide about two and a half years ago, was still alive. In the dream he was still Sicilian but he was also an orthodox Jew. The shop he had didn’t look the same as Mojo Cycles, though it was about the same size. It had a lot of three tier metal filing cabinets on top of which were displayed the covers for movies that he also rented in this shop. The video covers all seemed to have pictures of guys that looked a lot like Chico Marx, wearing similar hats to his as well. But all of the Chicos were statues in plaster with their bodies fitted impossibly into urn planters with very narrow waists. The actors all had expressions on their faces depicting bemused mock surprise. I had brought the bike I am riding right now for him to have a look at. It wasn’t really malfunctioning but I complained to him that it was slow.  He fiddled around with it a bit but then concluded that what I should be riding was a saw. He indicated a long handsaw that was lying on the floor just to my left underneath a bit of shop debris. I looked at it and tried to figure out how I could possibly ride something like that. He went to do something over by some of the filing cabinets and I got up to protest, “Why are you recommending saws for people to ride when this is a bike shop?” Then I woke up at 5:02.            
            My guitar tuner has been losing its juice very gradually over the last month, but since it’s been dark when I start practising I’ve been able to still see the note display, plus my guitar hasn’t been going out of tune very often lately. On Monday morning though it was brighter outside and earlier than usual, plus the humidity was messing with my strings and so they were going out of tune to an abnormal degree. On top of that it happened when I was a little ahead of schedule but because of all the tuning I fell a little behind. I decided that this was the day I’d have to go down the street to buy another CR2032 battery, but I noticed that I only had $1.90. I didn’t want to ride to the bank, so I thought it might be a good day to cash in all of my beer cans. I gathered them up into two bags and carted them on each handlebar of my bike to the Beer Store. As I approached what used to be called the Brewers Retail I noticed that it was mysteriously quiet. When I got there I saw that it was closed and then I felt stupid because I’d forgotten that it was Family Day. I had to take all the cans home and then ride to the bank machine at King and Dufferin after all.         
            I tend to buy my tuner batteries at Young’s Fine Food Convenience at West Lodge and Queen. The woman behind the counter seemed like she was in a bad mood. The got pissed off at the hump backed elderly gentleman ahead of me because he didn’t like the scratch card that she’d handed him and asked for a different one. She complied, but exclaimed, “They’re the same! You’re funny!” She didn’t seem to appreciate either the fact that after buying the battery I ripped open the cover to test it in my tuner. It’s not like anyone was waiting behind me.