12 May 2009 - 23:51George is ‘effin Negligent…

So, after a 14 hour work day (a Monday no less) I rolled home daydreaming about a beer and a nice comfy spot on the couch, when I suddenly remembered that Mandy’s bike was on the roof. Well, to be more specific, I was halfway into the garage when the sickening crunching and popping above my head reminded me of this fact.

Shit.

Damage done, I backed out and turned the car off. Of course, everyone awake in the house heard it. Damn.

Well, hey, at least it wasn’t my bike right? Well, fortunately for me, I use a Thule Sidearm, which I completely destroyed. The tray of the rack actually bent and all the plastic bits shattered allowing the bike to pop out of it’s mooring and drag down the side of the car. I sheared the carbon post, lost all the plastic C clips to the rear brake and split one of the nipples in the rear wheel in half. Had it have been a fork mount rack, I imagine the damage would have been much more severe.

But no other damage to the bike. I’d say I got off very lightly. Damn these Jabbers are tough! And so are my wheels! Judging by the gouging in the seat collar, the wheel suffered the brunt, not once on the way in, but twice on the way out. I imagine the gouging in the seat collar happened when it passed into the garage, shearing the seatpost.

I’m pretty sure I’d buy another one of these racks too… 

Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that now I am no longer able to lord my status over my friends who have done the same thing, some of them twice, with much more expensive results. 

And let us not forget, that some of us have done other stupid things, like backing out of the garage and turning away before actually clearing the garage and ripping a perfectly good front bumper shell off of a pearl white Audi…

Or, pulling into work and not seeing the bucket of a parked back-hoe, and turning into it and dragging the bucket across the entire right side of a ’91 Westfalia…

Or most recently, coming into the driveway a little too hot and punching an $1100 hole in the side of the bumper skin of a Saab on a cold winter’s night …

Yeah. 

It’s these moments that remind us that we are human, and therefore make mistakes, some of them more stupider than others.