A Sad and Sorrowful Mistake

Preamble 

It is easy, in the course of human events, to make mistakes. I'm not sure who said that, but I would not be surprised to find out that it was me, since making mistakes seems to be my purpose here on Mars. Please understand: making a mistake implies reasoned thought. Blundering about like a blindfolded man in a house of mirrors is all well and good but not applicable to the making of mistakes. That little chore is reserved for those of us who think before we act and then get it wrong anyway.

Enter The Evil Empire

Yeah, I'm talking about Walmart. No, not Walmart, I'm talking about myself. Well okay, I am talking about Me and Walmart and reasoned decisions and the making of mistakes.

I once read somewhere, probably Mad magazine or Playboy, that there is no such thing as a failed experiment. Experiments are conducted to test hypotheses, to find out what happens when THIS is done to THAT. The results are drawn up and reported and the cumulative gathering of Universal Knowledge is increased and we know what will happen if THIS then THAT.

And yet we elected dedicated war-mongers named Bush to the presidency more than once and probably will do it again (there's one left) (but maybe not,  'cause Jeb must be the adopted Bush. He is smart and competent and not at all war-mongering and if it is him or Hillary in 2016 I'll vote for both.) So the advancement of scientific knowledge ain't that much compared to the powers of marketing.

[editors note: I must have been out sick or on drugs the week we studied sentence structure at the reformatory. Add it to my guilt and I'll pay ya next Tuesday.]

Yeah, Baby, MARKETING! But I can't even blame that. I looked at the product, fondled it, rode it down the aisles of the store, lovingly stroked the over-fed bulge in my pocket, (my wallet, you pervs) and pulled the trigger, like Hemingway after his last shock treatment.

Return To Fornever

The OX29 is back in the unloving arms of the corporate creche called Walmart Returns and I am here to tell you why and to seek expiation and refunds as I, my heart full of sorrow, shed myself of yet another bad choice. I have done it with friends and women, automobiles and all manner of four legged creatures, and it never makes me happy when I do it and when it is over, my already monumental guilt is yet further increased.

But at least with Walmart I got my money back.

Overview

The overwhelming picture of the Walmart Bicycle Tragedy is that they market bicycles as toys. The bicycle display is on the farthest edge of the Known Universe. (No, wait...the bicycle display is on the edge of the toy shelves between the fondle-me-elmos and the camp-if-you-dare equipment. The Known Universe ain't no where around here.)

So...I rode the OX 29 last yesterday to the bank to make a $20 withdrawal to sustain my drug habit. (Budweiser). On the way, I kept noticing the overall cheapness of the poor old darlin' OX and I was confronted with the realization that ultimately, were I to correct the inexhaustible savagery of the corporate avarice that resulted in this sad monster beneath my feet I would have to replace everything: spokes, handlebars, stem, cranks, hubs, everything. And I would still have a bicycle that was nothing more than a toy.

Sad Reality

Always in our lives we are sooner or later faced with the painful necessity of parting with loved objects, whether they are named Raggedy Ann or Hello Kitty, PeeWee Herman or yes, even  Rosebud.  Be that as it may, one of my greatest strengths has always been my infallible integrity in taking responsibility for my own actions and so, full of self-righteousness and beer, I blame Walmart. 

Why? I don't really know.  The only option to shopping at Walmart for the "dry goods" that life requires involves going to a place called Dollar General, or Family Dollar, neither of which are locally owned either and as near as I can tell are just Baby Walmarts with even crappier products on the shelf, if that is even possible.  So Walmart screwed me in more ways than one, by offering up ultimately useless items at their store and  making sure that I have to shop with them or go to a different place that is just the same.  What is the answer?  Well, I usually think of Armed Revolution at moments like this.  So I guess I will have to go to Walmart to buy a gun and some bullets.  Oh man, this is making my head hurt. 

And so I Took It Back, I got my cash returned and I bought some underwear and a spare tube for Little Miss Dangerous and a pack of those excellent Skabs no-glue patches and then I got the hell outta there.

And Thus And So On...

Am I bitter? Well, what does it sound like? I took a much misaligned American Institution, gave it an honest chance and a fair break, wrote a positive (yet honest) early report, but then, like the penny-pinching prickly pricks that they are, they failed to reinforce my purchase with yet MORE cheap-ass marketing and sub-corterial brainwashing. How dare they?! With all the money Walmart makes the least they could do is plant chips in each of their crappy products that transmit pleasure signals into my cerebral context, (at least what's left of it), signals that would make me continue drinking the kool-aid and enjoying the screwing they are handing out to me and my fellow Walmart Shoppers.

But no.

In The Name Of The Father

In the clear light of a beautiful Florida Sunday, drenched in chilled sunshine and pedaling far too slowly towards the ATM, I heard the voice of Eldon Joe Comstock, my father and source of all things guilt-ridden, call out in that clear, mellifluous voice: “You're stupid! That piece of shit won't last a month! You wasted all that money on that piece of crap and you look like a dumbass pedaling around on that big kid's toy!”

His nickname was Corky Joe and he was a fireman, until his drunk ass fell off the back of the fire truck one time too many.

“Fire Chief One behind you, Unit Seven, someone's coat just blew off the truck.”

“Roger that, Chief, continuing on to the scene.”

“Unit Seven, hold on...Christ, that ain't a coat, it's Corky Joe, slow down, he's up and running for the truck!”

“Say again, Chief?”

“ It's...it's Corky, he fell off at the corner and came up running. Hold back and let him get back on board.”

“Roger that Chief...”

And Then, And Then Again

How do you measure yourself to that kind of standard? He was always the one who charged into the burning building and the only reason the department put up with his crap for so long had to do with stuff I won't talk about here because it would sound like bragging and because he wouldn't want to hear me tell it. They finally had to retire him early at the age of thirty five and he came down to Ft. Lauderdale and got back into the Comstock Family trade of carpenter; he was immediately absorbed into the Union and a few years later, so was I. He never once minced words and having faced pure fire and chased down fire trucks that he was supposed to be riding on, having pulled friends out of the fire and finally, succumbing to diabetes and hard living and more than a little intimacy with drink, he said “see ya later” at the age of 42.

Walmart Is Stoopid

What does all this have to do with bicycles and Walmart? Well, I'll tell ya. I am not angry that the OX29 was ultimately a failed project. I am a one who imbues anthropomorphic qualities into all my favorite things. But the OX was not a thing, it was a construct. Composed of all things false, even the design was doomed. Those 48 spoke wheels and coaster hub were heavy, bad and irreplaceable. The spoke nipples started rusting right away and there was some kind of corrosive action taking place between the spokes and wheels that was obviously unsustainable. Replacement tubes were special order and Walmart was a month out on getting those tubes.  I had the impression that they were imaginary tubes talked about to prevent frustrated violence in the toy department.

And all of this inside of a couple weeks.  This bike did not promise future trouble;  it promised not to BE here in the future.

I will not remember the OX29 as a favorite thing; there are far too many objects and creatures and people in my life that deserve that sobriquet far more than does any object spawned by the Evil Empire that Sam built.

Wrap It Up,  I'll Take It

I don't know, man.  Those big twenty-nine inch tires were a real blast.  I will one day have another bike that can carry big rubber like that bike did, but it will have a free wheel hub and a slightly more aggresive  position.  I gotta work on finding that bike... It is sad, really, that this is the way it all works out;  bicycles are machines, not toys;  we use our bicycles as toys sometimes but they are machines while we do it, they are equipment, tools...there is an inherent danger in selling a toy to a person who really needs a machine or a tool, it is symbolic of our current state of the union that the richest company in America is so confused or intrinsically dishonest that they will sell toys, (and highly flawed toys at that) to trusting and fool hardy Walmart Shoppers like me.

They also sell guns and bullets and THAT is a bit unsettling...

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Anti-Walmart Action Commitee

#84