Underprivileged Overload

While conversing over lunch with my friend Max yesterday, he said I should do "a day in the life" story. This is sort of in that vein...

Friday is typically my busiest day of the week at Wash Cycle, both in number of appointments and volume of laundry. I think yesterday I moved 41 bags and over 900 pounds total, all before Noon. Side note: I wasn't even the busiest cyclist on our team yesterday.

We service two homeless shelters on Fridays that make up the bulk of my morning's work. They usually average 6-10 bags, each weighing 30-40 pounds, so you end up with scenes like this:

No parking? Whoops... Anyway, do the math. That's a lot of weight - easily twice my own body weight.

One thing I've noticed about this job is that the novelty has not worn off, and probably won't. Sure, I've been exhausted at times, and during a downpour I pretty much hate my life, but what I'm taking about is this: just about every day, I encounter someone who simply cannot believe that I (we) move this amount of laundry...on a bike! Yesterday was no different.

I was loading up while several older gentlemen stood idly by, smoking cigarettes and chatting amongst each other. I hear all kinds of funny things, like one guy saying "Yea that's crazy. No cars. They don't use no gas except what comes out they butt." Hah...

And of course, there's always at least one person who asks "YOU are gonna move all that by yourself?" Yes I am.

And I did (pats self on back).

Today, a leisurely bike ride to the Art Museum, because it's free all weekend! Happy Saturday.