The Squeak

The Busy Day

Everything that didn't happen yesterday, we did today.

Writing the letters turned out to take up a lot less time than anticipated. I adapted one I'd already written, deleting and adding bits and pieces, until I got two similar letters in understandable German. The spelling checker seemed to think so, anyway, and Boyfriend agreed, so I rewarded my good behavior with a shower.

Then I tried to remember where I'd put my USB drive, which took about twice as long as writing the letters had taken. First, I turned my desk upside down. Found: one USB drive, but not the one I was looking for. Then I looked in my purse, remembering I'd used it for... Well, taking it downstairs. Cue panicky half minute where I thought I'd thrown it in with the washing. Then I scrambled through my purse with a bit more gusto, came up with nothing, so I emptied the thing on the couch. USB drive located. Thank God I'd hung a bunny on there.

I had gone from soaked to damp at this stage, so I loaded my letters and CV onto the drive and went across the street to see if I could get my bike to stop squeaking. I got some oil, Boyfriend a lock so we could both ride bikes independently, rather than his bike being either chained up to mine or prime bike-snatching material. Oiling a bike chain turns out to be easy, if a bit messy. I turned the bike's wheel and--it still squeaked. Go figure. I'm all out of ideas and I have no funds to let a professional take a look at it.

Biking reparation failed, we went to the city's post office. I got stamps and asked if they'd happened to have seen my package. They hadn't, but knew where we could ask what had happened to it, provided we got there before nine am. Gasp.

Then I got my picture taken. Photogenetic I am not. The photographer took about twenty pictures, two of which turned out okay. I picked my favorite and got a piece of paper and the news that I'd get a cd with all the pictures and four tiny prints of my pick in twenty minutes.

So we went to the printing shop. Well, I say we. Boyfriend went in, realised his orthodics needed picking up, and left after making sure I was linguistically able to take care of business. I was. The nice man in the store printed everything the way I wanted to, let me staple each letter to a copy of my CV and most graciously allowed me to pay what I suspect was the astronomical price of ten cents per sheet of paper printed. In greyscale.

By this time, it had started to rain, making not only my bike chain, but also my brakes squeal in agony. I felt acutely stared at as I went to the orthodics store. On the other hand, I didn't come close to riding into anyone, since anything alive and not completely deaf had ample warning of my coming in their general direction.

Boyfriend got hungry as we rode back. He got fish and chips. I went into a store selling mainly junk and got a solar happy flower. I later broke it as I opened it. Profound sadness.

At this point, my bike chain seemed to be squeaking even louder than before. I undid any alterations to screws I'd done before, without any effect whatsover.

We picked up my pictures and CD and went to the European equivalent of a dollar store. I got some envelopes, a notebook and some hooks with suction cups for the bathroom. I'm tired of almost showering on the towel meant to dry hands on, so from now on, the thing is hanging next to the washing machine. Boyfriend got some things he liked and off we...

Jesus Christ, let me please find a job soon. I need funds to have someone, anyone, with a clue to bikes fix whatever gave me the stuck-pig soundtrack I was moving through the city with. I'm not looking for stealth-biking here. I just want to not sound like I'm warning the world of my leprosy as I trundle my way to silly things like supermarkets, post offices and pharmancies.

At this point, I should point out I was parched and starving. That's what you get for saying no to bratwurst.

So when we got into the supermarket, I wasn't satisfied buying just bread. Even adding some fruit to the purchases didn't help. Like two cold-starved zombies, we made our way to the freezers. Ice cream, we wanted ice cream. We got some ice cream cones. Then another flavor ice cream cones. Then cheap popsicles. Yum.

We got out, and it had miraculously stopped raining. I'm sure the fact that we were about three hundred meters from being home had something to do with it. I resisted the urge to shake my fist at an intelligent creator and/or the universe and pedaled home with Boyfriend.

We each had an ice cream cone and relaxed a bit. Then I signed my letters, wrote addresses on the envelopes and looked for jobs. No job offers today, though if there's someone out there who drives forklift trucks and speaks passable German, come to Coburg. They're waiting for you.

By this time it was eight pm and we were hungry again. And, well, eight is late for cooking. And I needed to find a post box for my letters, right? And the nearest post box is, well... Oh, to heck with it, we went to McDondald's. Hard work, in the rain, in the heat, it deserves some calories.

Miracle of miracles, my bike had stopped squeaking its metallic little heart out after it dried up. Either that, or it's trying to give me hope that it doesn't need fixing. We got to the post box in relative silence.

I mailed my letters, we each had a burger with fries, followed by an ice cream and then went exploring. There's an electronics store looking for sales(wo)men, apparently, and I wanted to know where it was. And while we were looking, we looked at the place where the woman from the post office said we had to go to find out what had happened to my package.

Connecting the two destinations was... Well, a tad tricky. Both are basically 'follow road and turn', but neither road is the same and the turning is left one time and right the next. Hypothetically, this should describe a perfect 90 degree angle where both roads meet, but Coburg was built during the Middle Ages, when Greek theories of how perfect cities were only straight roads and perfect angles were heresy of the worst kind. And the houses that keep the roads from being straight now are probably UNESCO heritage sites or something, so you can't remodel the city.

Anyway, by the time I knew where we were again, Boyfriend got distracted by Munzees. I went home, he went 'to the old movie theater'. That was almost an hour ago. It's since turned dark and I don't know if he knows how to turn on his bike lights. Also, the internet isn't working, so I'm typing today's post in notepad, awaiting my knight in shining armor to come save me from being cut off from... Well... Killing monsters with double crossbows, but also contacting people in other country codes.

I could try restarting the modem... Okay, that worked.