Maggie Pierce

            Late Monday afternoon there was 60% chance of thunder showers so I decided not to take a long bike ride, but to just ride up to the No Frills at Dundas and Lansdowne. As I took my bike out though, I saw that my back brakes had drifted to the right again so that the left pad was up against the rim. Bike Pirates had just opened and so I took it there. Alain told me that there were two people ahead of me on the list and so I thought I’d go to the supermarket while I was waiting but first I had to temporarily fix the brakes so I tried to unscrew the back nut so as to shift their balance, but I unscrewed the centre cable by mistake and so I spent a few minutes fiddling with it until Alain told me that there was a free stand for me.

            I struggled with the brakes on the stand and Alain helped me get them a decent distance apart but they were still drifting. Alain didn’t know what to do so I asked Dennis, who advised me to give the brake a good cleaning with some degreaser, a toothbrush and some oil. He said that ultimately I’ll probably have to come in for a few hours, disassemble the brakes and bend the spring to put the tension back in. I did the cleaning that he’d suggested and when I rebalanced them I took into account their tendency to drift to the right and balanced them to the left as far as they would go without the right pad rubbing against the rim. I donated $8.50 in change and then rode up to No Frills. Just as I pulled up to the bike locking area, my next roof neighbour Taro pulled up behind me, said hi, locked his bike and went inside.

            They had some good grapes from Mexico, so I bought a few bags. I also got 1.5 litres of Ontario plums and four containers of Greek yogourt. The express cashier looked extremely bored and just went through the motions of greeting and thanking me.

            Shortly after I got home I cut up the chicken that I’d bought on Saturday and roasted it in the oven. I had a leg with steamed cauliflower, a boiled potato and gravy while watching two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story Chatsworth Osborn offers Dobie $200 to pose as him for one night in an exclusive hotel and meet some old acquaintances of his family, Cynthia Vanderfeller and her father. Chatsworth hasn’t seen them for twelve years but doesn’t want to bother because he has a date. He shows Dobie an unattractive picture of the then nine-year-old Cynthia, Dobie agrees and takes Maynard along as his chauffeur and body guard. They meet in the penthouse suite of the finest hotel in town and Cynthia turns out to be gorgeous. But her and her family turn out to be fallen bluebloods trying to claw their way back to the top. Cynthia’s father hypnotizes Dobie (and inadvertently Maynard) and convinces him to immediately leave by helicopter to a yacht on which the captain can marry Cynthia and Chatsworth so that he and Cynthia will be rich again. The hypnotism also convinces Dobie that he is Chatsworth even though the vanderfellers don’t realize that he is not. After they all leave the hotel room Maynard snaps out of it and goes to Dobie’s father for help. They go to the boat and rescue Dobie.

            Cynthia was played by Maggie Pierce, who co-starred with Jerry Van Dyke in the one-season TV series “My Mother the Car”. It’s considered one of the worst TV series of all time.

            In the second story Dobie falls on a shelf that he made for his metal work course and bends it horribly out of shape. An avant-garde student named Anastasia sees it and thinks that Dobie is an amazing sculptor. She takes him to frolic-dance in white robes under the moonlight but Maynard goes to Dobie’s parents for help. Dobie’s mother though gets everyone to join the pagan dance and they all get arrested and thrown in jail because they are trespassing on a rich guy’s estate.