Riding Lessons

Several evenings ago I leisurely rode my bike around the residential town nearby. My post-dinner ride has become a custom since the weather has cooled enough for my excursions to actually be enjoyable.

My evening rides tend to meander. I zig-zag through grid-patterned neighborhoods, zoom over train tracks and sometimes take a lap over gravel park paths to break up the monotony of blacktop.

Though hardly ever do two evening rolls look exactly the same, there is one constant that will forever be a ritual – my snack hole.

My snack hole, a tube top bag, is where all essentials live for my every ride. On a typical ride, in my bag you’ll find my phone, keys, money and, without fail, some variety of snack. My current snack of choice? Sour gummy worms.

How I treat myself to gummy worms has evolved into a little game I play with myself. Ride five blocks? Get a gummy worm. Strain up a big hill? That’s worth two worms in my book. See a stray cat? Why not pop a worm? (That last rule may be a little self-indulgent given the number of feral cats around Covington.)

But the real kicker to this game is that I can’t see what I’m grabbing. Because I have to keep my bag half zipped to protect my essentials from spilling whenever I inevitably hit a pothole, the opening to my bag of worms is but a wee black hole. Just big enough to fit a couple fingers in to claw out a worm.

And we all know that not all sour gummy worm flavors are created equal.

So every ride I leave it up to the gummy gods to decide my flavor fate. Sometimes they are on my side and grant me my favorite green-blue flavor. Maybe two, even three times in a row – while allowing the dreaded orange-red flavor to enter the mix only occasionally.

However, my ride a few nights ago was not that ride. About a half-hour into my roll, I was beginning to believe the gummy gods were punishing me for the worm I had accidentally dropped and stepped on earlier in the week. One after another, the orange-red worms didn’t quit.

The onslaught of unfavored worms quickly became comical. Five? Six in a row?! Never would I think of putting a worm back into the snack hole; my fate had been decided. As I giggled at the unfortunate hand I’d drawn for the evening, a thought came to me.

Why can’t I apply this mindset to woodworking?