Geez, what a morning.

My rear wheel mud flap thing (what the heck do they call those things on bikes?) fell off a few weeks ago when I was jamming my trusty Trek into the back of our car after The Missus was kind enough to pick my sorry ass up on a rainy day. In the process, I knocked my rear mud flap off, and kept forgetting to put it back on until moisture sprayed my nether regions one day on the way home last week.

I haven’t been happy with the mud flap since I bought it. It’s affixed with a loose velcro strap and just doesn’t stay put. It’s called “Defender”, which strikes me as sort of funny, seeing as it really doesn’t “defend” shit.

Anyway, with rain on the pavement and in the forecast, I strapped the thing on this morning, and it just wouldn’t stay. I had seven, then six, minutes, to get to Hawthorne station, so I put it on as best I could and hoped for the best.

It lasted until the straightaway along Elwood, where my faithful “Defender” flopped into the road. Fortunately no one was coming (how is it that no one is coming on a town’s main drag at 8:40 on a Monday morning?), so I stopped and rode the rest of the way with the Defender in my hand. (Mind you, I didn’t have any rain splatter onto my hand the rest of the way.)

I was cutting it close for the 8:43. As I pulled into the station, the northbound train strolled in. As I arrived at the bike rack, the 8:43 came into view. I didn’t have time to lock up either my helmet or my stupid Defender, and bolted up the stairs to catch the 8:43, still wearing my helmet, slaloming through the former riders of the northbound train, yelling “Train to catch!” and head-butting the stragglers with my helmet.

Mercifully, the train, being a minute and a half early, sat on the platform long enough for me to board.

The misery didn’t end there. The crummy 8G iPod that I have not been thrilled with since I bought it in July was locked up on Green Day’s “American Idiot.” (Indeed, it couldn’t been worse. It could’ve been Black Eyed Peas.). Only my 12th attempt to reboot it freed it up from post-punk perpetuity. I think I’ll be in the market for a new iPod soon, and it won’t be the Triscuit-sized Nano.