A DIY I am NOT!!

Or so my Hermanita tells me.  She is right! A DO IT YOUR SELFER, I am NOT! I really am not one to easily figure how things work, nor how they are put together. That pretty much applies to everything mechanical, industrial, electrical... YOU KNOW, the right side of the brain that gives us those skills? I didn't get any.

Which explains what happened to me earlier.   Remember my $900 windfall, from my Nounoune clever mistake. Well, with that windfall, I decided to buy myself a new bike. This is the first time I have had a NEW bike since Maman and Papa wheeled a beautiful, green bike into my bedroom, when I was ten years old.

I very carefully picked a solid, white, Giant made bicycle at our local bike shop, on a grey, rainy morning.  So much for really trying it out, but I relied on referrals, and the expert service provided by the owner.  I wanted a bike whose front wheel I could easily remove, as I wasn't about to buy a bike rack, nor get a hitch put on my car, in order to travel with my bike. THIS frugalista had spent ENOUGH money.

I very carefully watched the store owner remove the front wheel, and the brake gauge.  He did it several times, and I practiced. I even took a video!  So after throwing in a bike helmet and a safety chain onto the bill, I carefully put my new (as YET unnamed, but I am working on that!) bike into Jiminy's small hatchback trunk. The owner wanted to help me, but I wouldn't let him.  He remarked, "You women are very independent." The look on my face prompted him to add, PDQ, "And THAT'S a good thing!"

Well, I got home and put the front wheel back on. Of course, it didn't LOOK right, it didn't FEEL right, and it didn't turn properly.  Several frustrated phone calls later, and having spent fifteen minutes rummaging around Jiminy's trunk in a futile search for a teeny, tiny spring, I gave up.  I found one spring, not two.  Apparently, I had unscrewed the bobbin, or whatever you call it, too much.  No one told me that... to NOT unscrew to the end. 

I couldn't drive my bike, so I had to put it BACK in the car and take it BACK to the bike shop three days later, to have the wheel put BACK on properly.  

Lesson learned? Don't take your front wheel off, unless you are with someone who can help you put it back on, if you are a DITZ like me!  Or... only bike locally, where you can hop on your bike the minute you step out the door. 

What in the name of heaven am I going to do, when I get a pet carrier for the back of my bike, so Vimy can come along? Somehow, I don't think reading the manual, and watching every, single video available on YouTube, will be of ANY help to me.  Poor Vimy, he may end up whizzing by me. :)

PS:  My new bike has been christened ZIP ZIP!  I can't very well use ZOOM ZOOM, now can I?