July 2

I worked at my real job this morning. It went good and I had the afternoon to prepare for my dream job. Luxury Lake Tours is getting busy and I looked forward to riding my bike to go boating.

Living the dream, until it went sideways. I hate running late, I just can’t seem to find a way to get organised enough to not run late. I always try to do the maximum I can every day. I think that is where I go wrong. Even after Covid, old habits die hard and I underestimated the time I had. I had a tour at seven and needed to stop and grab the nice couple a bottle of wine to help them celebrate.

In chaos I thrive. Instead of merely relaxing and taking my time to go to the dock. I decided that I had time to pick up a new bed, help my neighbour install a piece of flashing on his house, eat dinner, and have a shower first. Maxing out my day to get the most is not always the best. Today I proved that to myself… again.

I was doing good. I had accomplished all my tasks and still had an hour to get to the dock and drive the boat from its home at the El to the Water Street boat launch. I needed to arrive a few minutes early and welcome my guests for their two hour celebration of marital bliss. I stopped at the liquor store near my house to grab the wine.

That’s when disaster struck.

In my rush to get into the store I shut off the bike, turned the key and dropped it; right between the fairing of the bike and the gas tank. Panicked I shook the bike to see if it would fall through. It fell alright. Unfortunately it didn’t fall to the ground, it fell deeper into the bowels of my bike. Now I was screwed. I couldn’t get my key, nor could I go anywhere. I shook the bike some more to no avail. Cursing myself and my stupidity I started to sort out my situation. My spare key went missing sometime last year and all my tools to remove the fairing or the tank were either locked in the bike or at home. I swore again at my stupidity and misfortune.

I called Captain Rob to see if he could help. His help was to suggest taking a taxi to the Eldorado. I resigned myself to leave the bike and get to the dock on time.

My wife came to my rescue. I called Krista and told her of my emergency. My first world problem was not a true emergency but she came to my rescue nonetheless. She now had an excuse to go visit her parents so she dropped everything and came to pick me up. I went in and bought the couple their wine and waited for my ride. Krista graciously was there and I hopped in her car. Frustrated and stressed she smiled and said it could have been worse.

Indeed it could have been worse. I sat in the passenger seat, anxiety and frustration with myself flowed through my body. I took my lesson humbly and swore I would get a tag for my key. Tomorrow I would have to go back and take apart my bike, I would have to slow down next time and be more careful. I will remember this lesson, it could have been much worse. Life is full of lessons. It’s what we take from those lessons that help us grow.

Our world has been taught a big lesson in 2020. I hope that our society can learn from these lessons and grow