To That Anonymous Butt-Slappin' Girl on West Ave...

You know, I had tonight's blog entry all planned out from early today. I had a crappy day at work, I was going to comment on some of the things I saw on the way to work today (specifically tips for drivers and cyclists) and my ride home just didn't get any easier than going in. And then this most wonderful of all things happen...

There I was, trackstanding my mountain bike heading north on West Ave. between Frank & Angie's and Molotov's and behind a nice little Audi TT. Traffic was a bit backed up (about 6 cars which is quite a lot for that block) and it looked like everyone was turning left on 6th so I decided to go down the right side of the street and bypass the line. Unfortunately, the light on 6th went red so I pulled in between a rather large SUV and that same Audi TT to trackstand my way through another light. Little did I know that a devious plan was being launched from behind. Literally...

After about a minute of trackstanding, I was startled to hear a voice talking to me in between beats of "With You" by The Subways and I'm sure she saw that surprise through my consternated countenance. Now, it's quite amazing how much you can remember about an incident when something takes you by surprise. It's kinda like I remember exactly what the clouds looked like while I was doing a front flip over the front wheel of my crashing motorcycle about 15 years ago. Sure, we see clouds every day but I still remember those puffy white clouds framed by the black rim of the full face helmet before the blue and white sky turned to grayish-black asphalt. But this time wasn't about crashing motorcycles but about getting your butt slapped by a total stranger (not that those experiences are even comparable... :-)

I remember that she was wearing light blue jeans, a dark loose shirt with a silver necklace and blonde, shoulder length hair. I only had a second to turn and face her since I was still trackstanding. "Hi. My friend in the car said she would pay me 10 dollars if I came out here and slapped you on the butt. Would you mind?" Well, I think that's what she said. As I mentioned, The Subways were still rockin' in my ears. so in reality, I heard, "Hi. ... friend ... car ... 10 dollars ... slap you on the butt. ... mind?" Being quite well versed in selective hearing (I think all us guys are good at that), I was able to piece enough together to say "Sure. Whatever I can do to help." Which then, to be quite honest, she rather wimpily slapped the side of my right cheek and said "Thanks!" and went back to the car where I could see her friend with a blended look of "I can't believe she just did that..." and "Man, now I owe her 10 dollars..."

Now, on the rest of my way home, I was trying to attach some larger, cosmic meaning to this random event. After all, you don't get your butt slapped everyday by a complete and gorgeous stranger and especially wearing geeky cycling clothes (if anything, you take more insults from the guys for wearing those geek clothes. Just ask my co-workers...). I really wanted to say in this post that things like this are just what makes Austin, well... Austin. That irreverent attitude. What you see is what you get. You know, those kind of things. But after much thought and contemplation, it came down to there really wasn't a grand, underlying theme to the event. It was just some happy-go-lucky person doing something on a whim to a totally random person. Thankfully, this happy-go-lucky person likes to slap butts and isn't a serial killer, or worse, someone who likes to push those geeky cyclists over balancing at the stop light (Oh, come on... You know when you see us sitting there you're rooting for us to hit the deck... :-) That's just downright embarrassing.

The other thing I thought on the way home was I might get a bit upset if the butt slap was some kind of pity slap. You know, they felt sorry for the poor, geeky cyclist so let's show 'im some love. But even then, I'm hoping that the 10 years of on-and-off competitive cycling in Dallas sometimes averaging 250+ miles a week along with the 45-60 miles of mountain biking I regularly do here in Austin per week, might have had something to do with it. After all, we do need to tell ourselves these little things when the reality could be so much different.

So, to the anonymous girl who slapped my butt on West Ave. tonight, I thank you from the bottom of, well, you know... If your friend is still up for giving you money, I'm at that intersection every Mon, Wed and Fri at about that same time. Feel free to increase your bank account at my expense. Thanks for really making my day!

Changed: 12/30/06 - Changed the link from the generic Subways site (where you have to choose either UK or US version) to the US site (but make sure to check out their UK site as well.)