New Year’s Resolution to go Nowhere.

Hello there. My name’s Bobby. I work at a bike shop. Actually, I’ve worked in a few bike shops over the years. I didn’t really set out to. It was just something that sorta happened on its own during college. I was enough of a fixture at my neighborhood shop– a human drool fountain posted up near the purple anodized stuff– that one day when the manager realized they were going to be a man down to start the summer, he asked if I’d be so kind to mosey to the other side of the counter and start working.

The next day I called and politely canceled an interview for an internship at an advertising agency. Told them my summer plans had changed.

Really, who in their right mind would want to go through all the hassle of buttoning up a shirt every morning just to go work at a job and not get paid when they could take a minimum wage position that didn’t even require shoes?

Next time you’re at your local shop, look around at the folks working there. Chances are there’s at least a couple like me. On the surface they might seem like over educated, direction less, slackers but wipe away that layer of grease and/or Cheetos dust and you’ll find someone who’s smart enough to know that real jobs are for suckers.

While a paycheck from a bike shop job seldom features a comma, the lack of money is subsidized through a nice discount (like a crack head getting to work at a crack house a good chunk of our paycheck will find its way back into the cash register) and the sheer entertainment value of the job.

I’ve often described where I work to my career having friends as “adult day care that goes both ways.” Us employees who have better things to do than get a real job have a place to go a few days a week where we in turn do our best to entertain those who have nothing better to than hang out at the bike shop. 95% of these people are fine, upstanding citizens while the remaining 5% are some of the biggest freaks you’ll ever run across this side of the Mos Eisley Space Cantina, which often makes your local bike shop a portal for all that is weird and mysterious around town. Think “Twin Peaks” if the Log Lady rode a bike.

You know those fringe members of you see who more likely than not live in a van down by the river? Yeah, the ones who ride bikes straight out of the apocalypse. They gotta get those bikes fixed somewhere, you know.

But today, I’m not here to talk about paramilitary types on bikes. We’ll get to that later. What I want to talk about right now is that seasonal scourge known as the New Year’s Resolution shopper.

If you’re one of those people who bought a bike on the first of the year, don’t sweat. I’m not going to harass you.

On the other hand, if you happen to be a vapid chick whose big New Year’s Resolution was buying a pair of “spinning shoes” and start hitting the gym, then we need to have a few words.

Ever since January 2nd, I’ve been feeling the stomach burning pain and indignity of what it was like for Al Bundy to support his family by slinging women’s shoes. The shop where I work is surrounded by spinning studios for miles in every direction and this time of year their new students flock to us like mosquitoes to a bug zapper.

So far this month I’ve sold “spin shoes” (as the ladies call them) to a shriveled lady so old and with such gnarly feet that sometime in the last century they had to have been caught in one of the meat processing machines Upton Sinclair described in “The Jungle.” If only I were into narcolepsy and had a foot fetish, then those dreams I’ve been having about here feet wouldn’t be nightmares.

On the other end of the spectrum there was an 8 year-old who’s taking a spin class with her mom but yet doesn’t know how to ride a real bike. And somewhere off in the distance, the ghost of Norman Rockwell shot himself in the face.

Still, as least that 8 year-old was pleasant despite experiencing her childhood from the human equivalent of a hamster wheel.

Taking the forbidden cake for the title of this year’s edition of Spin Class Mean Girl is a woman we’ll refer to as Crunchy. Never caught her actual name and I’m glad. Crunchy came in for shoes. After surveying a selection that would make the average roadie would hack up last week’s GU in excitement and awe, she coldly asked, “Is this all you have?”

“Yep.”

“Why don’t you have more?”

“Uh, because they don’t make more. These are the complete lines from three different companies.”

“Well do these come in another color besides obnoxious?” she asked, holding up an Italian pair of shoes that cost almost as much as my rent and would never see the open road strapped to her indoor only feet.

“Nope. For people who ride bikes that go places, all the top end stuff is intentionally obnoxious so that other bike riders can tell from a mile away that you’ve got the best stuff.”

“Well that’s dumb.”

“So’s riding a bike that goes nowhere.”

After a small awkward pause, she held up a pair that met her rigorous standards in taste. “I’ll try these in a seven.”

I duck into the back room and magically reappear with her shoes- in a size 8 of course since women rarely tell the truth about their shoe size.

“Do you have any socks?”

I grab our little basket of tester socks and tell her to dig in.

“Don’t you have any socks that haven’t been worn before?”

“Yeah, they’re for sale over there. It’s not like anybody’s actually used these,” I say offering the basket to her once more.

“That’s so disgusting. I’ll just buy a pair.”

Now’s probably a good time to mention Crunchy’s hairstyle. Crunchy had a full, bountiful, head of dreadlocks. It was obvious she’s had them for quite a while.

“I really like your hair,” I say to her with my best false sincerity as she’s inspecting socks with the scrutiny of an IRS Agent.

“I’ve always wondered, how does hair get that way?”

“It’s easy. You just don’t wash it for a really long time.”

“And you’re worried about a pair of socks that have been on someone else’s feet?”

She didn’t respond to that but maybe somewhere in the recesses of her brain under that mess of hair that hadn’t seen shampoo since the Clinton administration, the irony of her ways set in.

If not, perhaps her epiphany came when she hit the sidewalk and immediately lit up a cigarette before heading off with her new spin shoes.

Somehow I doubt that.