Soigneur For Hire

Excerpt From CyclingNews.com

Ka-rack!  Lightning struck the high rise condo building which looms over our backyard along the Ohio River.  While I was sort of disappointed my wish didn’t come true and Thor once again missed the ugly dead tree in our neighbor’s overgrown yard, I was happy to be taking care of domestics.  I’m my own soigneur. 

Domestics is a term coined by a former teammate, a civil way of saying, “I’ve named the dust bunnies in my living room.”  He used it as a reason he couldn’t ride, but think he had it sort of backwards.  I save the domestics for when I can’t ride, like last night.  That’s what cyclists do when it rains.  In a sport that more or less depends on fair weather to enjoy, there’s a reason to smile when it rains.  While it may be close to crawling away on its own, the VW Beetle sized pile of dirty clothes at the foot of your bed isn’t going to wash itself.

I wrangled the recyclables and cleaned the cat boxes.  It was 5:45pm.  With black clouds creeping closer, raindrops tapped on the windows.  Normally on a Tuesday, I’d be filling water bottles and searching for the ever elusive taillight.  Like a bad friend cancelling a date, the rain waits to fall 30 minutes before the group ride starts.  At least I saw it coming on radar.  I had an hour or more to kill before there’d even be a chance to clip in.

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As the Channel 9 meteorologists advised people in the northern suburbs to take their “tornado safe place” over footage of flood water pouring down Eden Park’s public steps, I man-sorted jeans & t-shirts, whites and delicates into three relatively separate piles.  I found my long lost Smithwick socks under the bed.  Back upstairs, I emptied the dishwasher.  Looking back at the TV and using my superior storm tracking cycling senses, I saw a break between storms and deduced I had about a 40 minute window.  Not long enough for a ride, so I stuffed a load in the washer and tied the laces on my Pearl Izumi Peak II’s.  By the time I'd come back from back from my run, it'd be perfect timing to get the load in the dryer.  On the way out for a flat 5k, I wheeled the recycling to the curb.  While I’ll never go pro, I’d have a solid career as a pro cycling team soigneur.