[sic]

Riding home last Friday I somehow managed to hit a big enough bump or pothole to dislodge the business end of the awesomely bright rear blinky light on my bike, leaving me with nothing more than than the rear casing attached to my saddlebag.

I used some of my small strap-on LEDs in the interim until a couple days ago when I could roll to the Bicycle District Square Gateway Homeland Zone Quadrant Town Epicenter at Heliotrope and Melrose where the literal hole-in-the-wall shack that ist Orange 20 Bikes is located.

Honestly, my last couple visits haven’t gone so well. I was sold the incorrect style of brake cable on one occasion, and most recently I purchased a new set of tires only to get home to find they weren’t the same size.  Trifling and resolvable matters too be sure, but frustrating nonetheless. Coincidentally, both of those visits took place while co-owner Jim C. was elsewhere.

See, Jim besides being a legendary cyclist who knows a looooot about bikes, is also a guy who will take the time to do right by you, and he’s the reason why on my way home Tuesday I passed by Palms Cyclery on Motor north of Venice and Chubby’s on La Cienega south of Guthrie and kept on going straight to O20 — whether Jim C. was there or not.

If he hadn’t been, I would’ve just bought the light and bailed without asking anyone else working there for advice with a situation my bike had developed because frankly and in all likelihood I would’ve been blown off. It’s happened before. Never by Jim C.

Fortunately he was there, and as such after purchasing the light I troubled him to check out the clicking sound emanating from around the headset/stem area that had started sporadically enough but had since grown to be a maddening almost-constant reminder that something wasn’t right.

But what? Was it damaged? Was it metal fatigue? Was it a potential hazard either way?

Keep in mind Jim C. coulda said  “well it could be symptomatic of a problem that will require me to take a look and cost you money for labor and parts,” and I would’ve been all “OK.” But instead Jim C. stopped what he was doing, came outside and manhandled the bars of my bike a bit and heard a couple clicks and said there’s no damage, there’s no fatigue, and no it’s not a potential hazard either way. Then he told me a simple DIY fix that involved me greasing the stem bolts that hold the handlebars in place and also the insides of the stem because by most accounts he said it’s just simple dry metal-on-dry metal contact that’s occuring somewhere in there that’s in need of a little lubricationalization.

I did that this morning and guess what: no more clicks. None.

And that is why Orange 20 is my go-to bikeshop.

Sorry if this is gross-out material, but as to the freaking OMFG! humonstrocity of the cerumen impaction from which I had been unknowingly impaired, all I’ll say is that my doctor’s discovery of it a during a flu bout visit a few weeks ago prompted a return trip this morning so that his nurse could patiently flush the stubborn thing from its hideout in my left ear canal with some sort of medieval turkey baster suction/irrigation device.

It only took three tries over the course of several minutes, but having to suffer through the endlessly repeating and loud squish-splash-whoosh all up in my head made it seem like an eternity. The benefit of not having an indecently large globule of gunk plastered up against my tympanic membrane? Yay! I can hear like a 30-something’er again out of the left side of my command module!

To celebrate me stoically suffering the procedure and emerging from it a better hearing human being, I opted to reward myself (as if I needed an excuse) with a quick visit to Coco’s Variety Store that I previously raved about here on the Los Angeles Metblog. On that first visit with Susan I was satisfied with purchasing just one box of the notorious Hamster’s Lunch, but after discovering the wonderful hamster figurine included with the rather unpalatable snack, I’ve been wanting to collect all 12 of them!

Thankfully I limited myself to just two boxes this trip and I was pleased to find my lonely Roborovski hamster now has the company of the following two friends: a Dzungrian hamster on wheel (that spins!) and a somewhat worried and hand-wringing bipedal black-bellied hamster:

On the way out I also scored myself a couple gumball machine saints for the low-low of 5o cents each. It doesn’t get more dynamic a duo than the two the machine dispensed as if answering my prayers as to which ones I wanted: the Guardian Angel and the Virgin of Guadalupe!

Gotta admit I’m inclined to leave the guardian angel hanging because it’s tough to give five to someone who looks so unguardedly unenthusiastic. And on the subject of the lady in red, I almost hate to say this but can I also just point out that at first sinnerly wrong-way glance the virgin’s prayer hands could be misconstrued as an ample decolletage showing through a peekaboo gown.

Oh I’m so going to hell.