G and I decided to buy bikes for ourselves for Christmas. We were into mountain biking years ago and we each had a nice mountain bike. Then G's got stolen about a year ago and he acquired one from a friend to replace it. But it turns out we're getting old because we no longer want to mountain bike. We want to cruise.
We found suitable beach cruisers and planned to buy them shortly after Christmas (taking advantage of any after-holiday sales, of course).
Saturday afternoon (several weeks ago) - We go to Target to buy our bikes. They have a men's bike and a women's bike. This is the first store we've been to, though, so we want to shop around a little.
Saturday evening - We've decided to buy the Target bikes. Target has a men's bike but not a women's. We decide to wait to buy both together (in hind sight, I'm not sure why). New shipments come in on Tuesday.
Tuesday - The shipment came in. They have several women's bikes, but no men's. However, the bikes aren't assembled until Wednesday. We put our name on one of the women's bikes to reserve it.
Wednesday - The assembler changed his schedule. Now he comes in on Thursdays.
Thursday - All the women's bikes have mysteriously disappeared. Even the one with my name on it! The only cruiser they have back there is a men's, and it's missing its seat. What is going on in the Target stockroom?
G finally found a men's bike at a Target in another city. I was still bikeless, however, and I borrowed a cruiser from a friend to ride when we went camping. We had decided to just keep checking back periodically until a women's bike showed up.
On Saturday morning, we took a walk and ended up on a street with a yard sale. And the yard sale had a bike. G and I took it for a test spin (separately), and we liked it. We asked the woman if she would hold it until we went home and got some money. She said she'd hold it for an hour.
So we walked home, got some cash, and rode G's bike back over to the yard sale. (Yes, we did ride it together - me on the seat and G standing up pedaling. We're entirely too old for this. People probably thought we had stolen the bike and were making a quick getaway.)
The woman had held the bike for me even though two other people had offered to buy it in the interim. One guy even offered $30. We were coming back with $20. But she saved it for me. I figured this was karma, so I've named the bike Karmen. (My old bike's name is Chloe.)
So let me tell you about my new bike . . . It's a Schwinn Breeze from the late 1960's we think. The color is called "campus green," which is very similar to forest green, except smarter. It has the original seat - white and green with a big "S" on it - and the original handlebar grips, which are sparkly green.
I'm so excited about my new bike! It's a lot of fun to ride around. In fact, you might even say it's Schweet.
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