Friendly neighbors. Kitchen faucet backed up last week. Landlord comes to fix by snaking the pipes. He ends up breaking a pipe in my neighbor's garage that was connected to my sink. Guess what happens next? Yeah. His entire garage was subsequently filled with whatever was in my sink drain. Sad face. I found out when I came home the next day and my neighbor had every single one of his belongings which had previously resided in his garage loitering in the alleyway, soaking up the sun. Needless to say that while I could easily blame this on the landlord, I feel pretty terrible at this point about the situation. After all, I did start the chain of events by calling the landlord about my drain problem. But alas, this can be remedied in only one way. I fetch the last 22oz Stone IPA out of my refridgerator and hand it off to my weary neighbor, so that hopefully it will make him forget the entire situation; doubtful. It was the least I could do, and while bubbling liquid is probably the last thing he wants to think about at this point, this particular kind HAS to be the exception. He took it, success! But the story doesn't end there. This week I got home pretty tired after a long drive, a long day at work, a 5mi run, a 2500 yd swim workout, and one super fun Bodypump class. I'm exhausted. I'm done. First thing I see walking up the block is neighbor dude. I was trudging up the sidewalk carrying: my bike, my laptop bag, my gymbag, a backpack full of dirty work clothes, and a trader joes paper bag full of leftover food from my trip, and I'm about 15ft and a flight of stairs away from home. He exclaims: "wait, I got something for you!" runs inside and emerges with something in his hand. He attempts to hand me an ice cold IPA. Seeing that my carrying one more thing is a physical impossibility, he slips in my TJs bag. My neighbor is a cool dude.
Parallel parking. An abomination of the world you say? That's why they make self parking cars you say? Nay! I say: challenge accepted. Mind you, I live in a place wherein lacking the skillz of parallel parking means an extra 10 minutes of walking to get home. And when you carry as much stuff as I do from the car to home, THAT sir, an abomination. To me there is not much more satisfying that arriving at home after a long day, and finding the perfect parking spot, which you know will EXACTLY fit your car, plus or minus 6 inches. OK, so you might have to make a 23 point turn to get in, but when you do, and your neighboorhood is cheering for you when you swing the door open, and people show up with cell phone cameras to document this momentus ocassion, you will know what it means to be a parallel parking master champion. Champagne spray!
Being on a team. Any team. My personal favorite is my cycling team. Participating in an activity which requires you to rely on others and simultaneously take responsibility for a small part is definitely one of the most rewarding experiences I've had thusfar. In cycling the most humbling role as a team member is the guy that sacrifices himself for the good of the team. Blocks the wind for his team, moves his teammate up to the front, offers him his bike in the case of an accident, brings him food or water. They call him the domestique. The worker. The servant. Try it. Its hard. More posts to come about this.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - works almost all of the time.
ReplyDelete