THE CHAIN OF CIRCUMSTANCE:
A STORY WITH A MORAL


As I was already running late Friday morning, it was with no great pleasure that I noted my trusty bicycle had developed a flat tire over the night, for reasons which still remain mysterious. I had no time to deal with it right then and there; I had to run to catch the bus so that I would only be my usual twenty minutes or so late to work. After work, I'd have to find a way to get my bike to the shop. I mean, if it was just the flat I'd fix it myself of course, but I needed to get the front wheel trued anyway- I managed to bend it up pretty good by smacking into a massive great pothole a week or so ago. It was a pothole bigger than a fatman's bathtub, but you can't blame me for not noticing the pothole. Not when there was a pretty girl RIGHT THERE ON THE SIDEWALK next to it, just a-moseying along, clearly with no other reason for being there than to divert the eyeballs of hapless bicyclists, thereby luring us straight into the pothole. What else could she possibly have been doing there? Siren!

(Now, no doubt some of you are reading this and thinking "Saaa-ay! This riding smack into a huge gaping pothole thing: is this an effective way of impressing pretty girls? Tell me this is something I need to know" Sadly I must report: No It Is Not. Basically, pretty girls just kind of smirk and keep on walking.)

Anyways, there is a only short window of opportunity between the time I get out of work and the time the bike shop closes up for the day, and during that brief span of time the clouds opened up and it simply POURED DOWN LIKE CRAZY! Well, no way was I going to walk fifteen blocks in the pissing rain pushing a disabled bicycle! I have my dignity! Alas- this weekend shall be bikeless...

The rain relented shortly after the bike shop closed- too late for me of course, but it was forecast to rail steadily up at the lake until late Saturday. So I figured there wasn't a whole lot of point driving up there first thing- instead, I decided to go to the gym in the morning and then drive up later. With the bike out of commission, I had to drive to the gym- only to find out that I'd forgotten to bring change for the meter.

"Oh, bother!" I cried. "I've forgotten to bring change for the meter!"

So I had to drive off twelve blocks or so to find streets without meters. By coincidence, it just so happened I found a nice spot right by my old apartment, on Third Street. As I walked past my old place - good times! - who do I run into but my old landlord Pat! It's always great to run into old Pat - especially when he says "Hey! Don't I still owe you that $300? Wait here- let me grab my checkbook!"

Three hundred smackers! I'd pretty much given up on ever seeing those particular simoleons again, and here they are practically falling out of a clear blue dreary gray sky! And you know what, without that parade of inconveniences and setbacks- my oversleeping, the flat tire, the pretty girl, the bent rim, the shitty weather, the lack of change- if it weren't for every single event, happening in exactly the sequence ordained by Fate, I'd never have been in exact place at the exact time to run into Pat and I'd never have seen my three hundred rutabagas again! Everything happens for a purpose!

The moral to this story? Well, I should have thought it would have been obvious: For that series of petty irritations, clearly, to put up with all that I DESERVE A HELL OF A LOT MORE THAN A MEASLY 300 BUCKS.

Clearly.