Garage Cleaning Review

It's Movie Monday, but I really don't feel like reviewing the DVD we watched with Joey this weekend, Shanghai Knights. (Although, this Jackie Chan movie is fun. I was tempted to rewatch his choreographed fight sequence set to music from Singing in the Rain, complete with umbrella props. How about some slow-mo? Good stuff.)

Instead, today I will review for you yesterday's Garage Cleaning project. I give it a 9 on a scale of 10. It quite possibly could have achieved a perfect 10 (we got rid of the junk, reorganized the remaining stuff and it is much cleaner overall), except for the bike incident.

Now first I have to tell you that it was Rick's idea to clean the garage. It was on our "to do" list that we made, now that we supposedly have all this free time since we're not watching TV during the month of April. (Although the weather has had us out riding our bikes much more, so the extra time hasn't really materialized.)

Anyway, Rick wanted to cross something off the top of the list and he made me promise not to add anything new to the bottom. So I told him if he would take everything out of the garage, I would come out to sort and reorganize when that part was done.

And, as you can see, he did a good job except, well, I really can't believe he did this, he parked my "nice" bike up against a bush!

Although it seems counter-intuitive, the nicer the bike is, the less likely it has a kickstand. Weird, I know, but it has to do with extra weight and wanting to go as fast as you possibly can. So since my nice bike doesn't have a kickstand, he decided to rest it up against a bush where it could receive incidental scratches from the branches, get knocked over by a neighborhood kid, or just get pushed and shoved around in the general conglomeration of stuff.

Where did he part his nice bike? He took it up on the porch, and leaned it safely against the inside railing and further protected it by blocking the walk to the front door with the rest of our bikes that actually have kickstands. You can barely see his red bike safely hidden behind the porch railing and my pink bike basket.

I was not pleased by the inequity shown to my bike. Maybe you have to be a "mid-life crisis bike" in order to get any respect around here. My bike is 7 years old and has more than 10,000 miles on it (which Rick pointed out to me on the odometer, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed), so let's give some props to a bike that has served me long and well.

But, beyond this obvious and insulting slight, Rick did do an excellent job on the garage. We even left an empty space for Susan's bike, also sans kickstand, to rest against the back wall when she comes home for the summer.

I'm really tempted to add something to the "to do" list as payback. Maybe when Rick's not looking ...