Dmanit.

I should have read my horrorscope before I left the house this morning.

Here's what it said:

Librarian (September 24 to October 23)
“Venus' presence in Leo means beware of punctures and assholes ahead, and there's also an 80% chance of rain, and if you do try to get up early to be at work on-time, you shall get there late. Stay in bed today. Buy U.S. products on the internet while the Kiwi dollar is at a record high.”

I got a puncture last week on the way to work. Then I got another one on the other tire yesterday on the way to work. Then this morning I got another puncture on the same tire on the way to work.

The universe is trying to tell me something.

Buy new tires.

God must run a bicycle tire shop.
Bastard.

Or maybe he's trying to tell me to find a new way to work that doesn't involve going through a ghetto where there's always broken bottles and syringes and switchblade knives and homeys to impale your tires on.

Or maybe he's just trying to tell me to stop going to work.

Anyway. It started raining hard while I was fixing my tire. Which made me wet as well as tired.

Then two minutes after I got back on the road, a taxi van almost backed out on me. Some kids had just climbed in the back and he started backing out before they'd even shut the sliding door, so I had to yell at him to back off.

Then 10 seconds later a taxi car turned across and almost collected me.

Then a few minutes later a van pulled into my lane and almost took me out.

WTF?

They can't not see me.

I recently purchased a super hi-visibility cycle vest. It's totally gay, but you can see me from miles away. The vest is wired up, so it has five massive reflecting lights on it, and -- combined with the other lights on my bike, bag and helmet -- I look like a Christmas tree on wheels.

And it's big enough to go over my bag as well. So it makes me look like a gay hunchbacked Xmas tree.

Well that's some of the comments from people at work who have seen me, but at least I'm highly visible on the road.
So how did I nearly get hit three times in a 40-minute ride to work?

I'm beginning to wonder whether having all these lights is actually having the effect of attracting drivers to me, much like a mosquito to one of those zapper lights that attracts mosquitoes and then zaps them.

Except I don't get to zap them. If they hit me, I'm going to be hurt or dead, and if I'm dead I'm not going to be very happy and then I'm going to come back as a cat and crap on their lawn.

Yeah.

Rant over.

Then again, I did get a smile from a beautiful woman who was sitting in her car at some traffic lights.

Or maybe she was laughing at me.

It's hard to tell these days.