Why Everything Takes Too Long and No One Can Actually Know History, or Anything Else, Probably

I left Cafe Evolution
to get back on my bike
and head home,
but I noticed
that my bag of groceries
was missing,
so I looked around,
asked if anyone had seen it,
nope, oh well,
and I was in
a bad mood already,

so I ride home thinking,

"What kind of asshole
steals a loaf of bread
and a bottle of vitamins
out of a crappy looking bike?"

and trying to be reasonable:

"I guess they probably
needed it badly,"

but veering away from that
to thinking about how
I would have caused
them harm if I
caught them in the act,
then veering away
from THAT
to thinking
that maybe somehow
I deserved to have
it stolen from me
because my white people
took land from the Indians,
and then fantasizing about
posting about the theft on FB
to get some sympathy
but thinking
that's probably
too self indulgent and lame
and then fantasizing
about what I will say
to the host of the party
I was going to bring
the bread to,
like,

"Somebody stole it
from my bike!
I was too discouraged
and sad and broke
to go buy another one,
so I didn't bring anything.
I hope that's ok,"

but thinking that's
probably lame too,
but maybe not,
if said relaxedly.

Alright, well,
I get home
and check FB
and they had found the bag
under a car at the cafe!

So I biked back
to get it
and I'm thinking again
the whole way,
like,

"How did it get under there?
Maybe some asshole
was hiding it to get later."

or maybe someone
was being "kind"
by taking my bread
out of the sun,
which sounds
absurd now,
but was convincing then,
who knows why.

Then it clicked in my brain...

the bike basket had been
tilted oddly to one side...

the bike must have fallen over,
the bag fell out,
rolled under the car,
and someone
righted the bike after...

but of course
I started imagining
that maybe they
were pissed off
about not having
enough room
on the bike rack,
so they probably
roughly shoved my bike
around on purpose.

"What kind of
fucking asshole
does that???"

Then I guess I calmed down,
because I got my stuff back,
and I decided
to try and record
all the details

(and of course
I left out tons,
forgot so much, etc)

of this one incident,
one afternoon,
one man
and his thoughts,
his misinterpretations
and imaginings
about something so trivial,
in order to show
why everything takes too long
and no one can actually
know history,
or anything else,
probably.


-Jim DuBois
September 4, 2015