Inadvertent Member of the ISAF

It is a well known fact that when you're on a bike, your susceptibility to all the forces of nature is magnified exponentially. For example, there is no defrost button for your glasses, potholes suddenly seem like a crime against humanity, and bugs no longer have the opportunity to die on your windshield - just your face.

To prove my point, I contracted a Staph Infection during the second week of the Bike Commute Challenge month. O.k. that sounds like I willingly took one for the team, and trust me: I didn't! I was happily riding along the waterfront on my way to meet friends at McMennamins after work one day, when out from between groups of fleeing pedestrians flew what I considered to be a small bird. It wasn't. In fact, it was an insect that crash landed directly in my eye. If you had been an observer standing a safe distance away, the events that followed would have had you on the ground in stiches. I was going really fast, so when the bug hit me, I nearly fell off my bike. Sadly, there were quite a few groups of pedestrians sharing the winding trail, and I nearly flattened all of them, due to the gushing waterfall that was my eye. 1000 points for the old guy, right?! Not this time. Anyway, I stayed upright and managed to miss all of them, but alas, the infection ensued.

Needless to say, in the spirit of saving CO2, and helping Wallis Engineering rise to the top of the BCC, I only missed 3 days of the competition, and was back on my bike in no time. I was feeling pretty good, and besides a near miss with a stupid car/ other stupid bike rider, the competition carried on without a hitch.... until this morning.

When I was a kid, I had this book called The I Swallowed A Fly Club, and since then, I've always wondered if I would be so priviledged as to rise to the ranks of such elete. Well, I DID THIS MORNING! I was pedaling hard to catch a green light, breathing in gingerly the morning air, when a bug flew directly into my mouth. I don't think it died until it hit the equivalent of a windshield - a.k.a. my windpipe - to which it stuck, and is quite possibly still there. While I am quite please to have finally achieved my childhood dream of being in the ISAF Club, it turned out to be a lot more unpleasant than I had imagined. The fly clung to my uvula until I could get in the door at work and chug down some coffee. The worst part was trying to dislodge the little fella by swallowing hard to get it down. EWWWWWWWWWWW. I'm swallowing a fly right now?!?! (I thought, as I sailed through the light). It made my stomach turn.

Oh well! It was a small, relatively painless (compared to my last run-in with a bug) way to achieve the coveted standing of the ISAF Club - inavertent as it was. In fact, I think I get bonus points for the Staph infection ;-)