I got up really early, but then I got sucked into some French Open tennis and ended up staying in my room until 11:00 anyway. Since I was in a sprawling metropolis of over four thousand people, I decided to splurge on some Chinese food -- which was as good as I had any right to expect, I suppose. On a brighter note, the day was uniformly beautiful, though it didn't offer anything new in terms of scenery.
Today's ride -- 70 miles -- took me through only two towns (towns being defined, to my sense, as locations large enough to support either one (1) grocery or one (1) gas station). In other words, I was kind of out in the open.
I was a bit wiped by the time I hit Hartville, so I stopped at a corner store and bought a cup of ice cream, then walked to the city library and sat on a bench. That's when Betty (not her real name -- though I didn't listen to her real name, so maybe it is) -- that's when Betty came into my life. I first noticed her when she said hello, still a respectable 40 feet away. I said hello as well, then tried to seem busy, monitoring her approach out of the corner of my eye.
Betty had a halting, erratic way of walking, making brief eye contact while homing in on me through a series of tangential wanderings. Still, I held out hope that she would continue on her way... hopes that were bolstered when she walked past the bench I was sitting on... and hopes that were dashed when she sat down on the far side of the bench, which offered very little room to sit.
Betty, it should be said, was a sight to behold. She was about 5 feet tall and almost as wide, with a face only a felon could love. A small blouse -- too small, as if it had been left in the dryer a few thousand cycles to long -- clung to her short torso. A series of marvelously tenacious snaps held the blouse closed in the front in what can only be described as a singing endorsement of the quality of the American steel industry. Her shorts seemed to be painted on, and evidently she had run out of paint before she could finish the job. Betty, as a friend is fond of saying, was packing a yo-yo.
I briefly wondered how close to death I was as this 50-year old freakshow say next to me, and took solace in the fact that Betty's outfit pretty much ruled out the possibility of a hidden weapon -- unless she was planning to attack me with a bag of cottage cheese. But, I digress.
As I affected amazing interest in my ice cream, Betty removed a wad of hair from her pocket, then began to extract the remnants of a hairnet from it. She mentioned that she was a waitress, cementing my plans to wait until the next town for a meal, then casually said that she likes to talk to "people like me," which I took to mean bicyclists. Betty confirmed this a moment later when she told me that she once struck up a friendship with Frank, a solo biker who unfortunately chose to camp in Hartville's city park.
At this point, in order to give you a clear picture of my mindset, I should say that I was reeling from a neverending succession of cold headaches as I frantically shoveled ice cream into my mouth, wanting nothing more than to get back on my bike. Betty seemed not to notice, and she told me about how she really liked Frank, and "would have gone in his tent with him." As I desperately tried not to picture this particular possibility, Betty mentioned (somewhat sadly) that she and Frank had lost touch after a few years (an event which, I assume, coincides nicely with the advent of Caller ID in Frank's area).
I felt a little awkward in the pause that followed Betty's tale, but she seemed not to notice, and leapt into another discussion. "Are you married?" she asked. Still focused on Frank's near brush with disaster, I quickly (and falsely) assured her that I was. "I knew it," she said, to which I managed, "Really? How?" "Well, you're wearing a ring," she said. I instinctively glanced at my bare hands, but decided not to point out the incorrectness of her statement. Betty, for her part, seemed to notice of her own accord and quickly improvised that "I looked like the married type," and "That I looked like I missed someone."
Okay, I thought, I'm almost through with the damn ice cream, I can do this. Betty, meanwhile, had begun to tell me of her travels, which were nonexistent other than a brief foray into the Arizona desert. "It was the first time I ever went on a plane," she explained, "And I had to take two to get there!" Saying a silent benediction for the poor souls who sat next to Betty on that flight from hell, turned my cup upside down, spooned the last of the ice cream into my mouth, then began writhing in agony as my teeth shattered in rapid succession.
When I regained consciousness, Betty was listing all of her previous boyfriends (many of whom were named Joe, which I took as a poignant reminder of the creativity of those hardy souls that call Hartville home). I jumped up quickly, and warned Betty of an approaching storm (a tough sell with a nearly cloudless sky,) then wished Betty good day and told her to enjoy her lunch. Betty seemed amused by this, and explained that the paper bag she carried wasn't her lunch -- it was her fish game! She open the bag and showed me the game -- a child's magnet fishing game -- as I backpedaled across the park, leapt on my bike, and pedaled downhill.
She was still talking when I rounded a corner one block away. I stealthily picked my way back to the TransAm route (I had chosen to pedal in the wrong direction when leaving, because a direct route would have been uphill, prolonging my exposure to Hartville's dirty little secret).
The rest of the day, of course, pales in comparison to my brush with death in Hartville, and I made it to Marshfield after dark. The pool and showers were long since closed, so I set up for another unpleasantly hot night. Oh, and I found another tick. This one had dug into the scar tissue on my once-broken leg, and matches wouldn't deter the little bugger. I finally had to wrench him from my skin with some tweezers, then use a needle to dig his head and antennae out of my skin.
I hope you all slept well, though.