Goodwill is Great!

Look who got a new bike! This 24" beauty is the next size up from C's current bicycle, and I happen to know these suckers cost almost $400 new. It's a Specialized Hot Rock.

I know, I know. He doesn't NEED a new bike. He could easily get one more year out of the one he's got. It's got six speeds and handbrakes afterall, and he's only been riding it for one year. But, it's not like there's any question about him out growing it eventually. And we put a lot of miles on our bikes. And the little teeny bike #1 is getting too small for his buddies to ride when they come over. And most importantly, I got a screaming good deal on this baby!

So here's how it went. After a very wonderful Saturday afternoon playing in Heather's hot tub and eating pizza in the backyard (thanks Heather!), we stopped by the blood bank on the way home (for the cookies you know). You know how you have to fill out that stupid long questionaire EVERYTIME you give blood? You know how it asks you all these dumb questions like "have you had sex with a man that has had sex with a man since 1972?" "have you been incarcerated for more than 72 hours in the last 12 months" "have you used needles for self injection in the last 12 months" "do you realize that you shouldn't give blood just to receive an AIDS test"...I hate that form. It's not like they're paying us for our blood. Do you really think the heroine junkies and prostitutes are lining up to donate blood? Heck no, they're across town at BioLife getting paid for it. Not that there's anything wrong with a little cash for plasma now and then, but you get a bag of saline instead of apple juice and cookies so it's not really my thing anymore (now that I have a job and all).

Anyway, just as I'm thinking how annoying it is to have to fill out this dumb form again, I read "have you experienced cold symptoms in the past 3 days?" DUH! I've been b#tching about being sick ALL week. Sorry buddy, no cookie.
So as the consolation prize we headed over to Goodwill to look for treasures! Picked up a basically new REI jacket for the little fella, Gymboree overalls for the mystery peanut, a back-up set of my favorite set of curlers (from 1975 I think,with the yellow plastic to prove it, they've been in the family two generations now and still going strong every morning at 6:30am SCORE!). Then C stumbled upon the bike. Because it has flames on the seat just like his, only it's bigger and grey.
It didn't have a price so he asked this really sweet older guy. His boss told him $50, at which I cringed because the front brake is broken and the tires were pancakes, and well, we didn't actually NEED it anyway. So I tell Christian that we can't spend that much on it, and he of course is really sweet about that and starts to park it again, when the old guy comes over and says he's changing the price to $30 because that little boy should have this bike "This little boy here makes your heart kinda melt" Huh? I'm really not sure what all happened there, but next thing I know this younger guy is down there with an allen wrench adjusting the seat to fit C perfectly. Now I don't usually find myself all that impressed with the staff at Goodwill, usually the folks I run into are most likely doing their mandatory community service and don't give a darn about anything. But these two guys were the nicest fellas, and you could tell they were just so happy to get to make a little kid's day.
Then on Sunday we stopped by Fairhaven Bike (which was the sticker on the bike frame) to buy the parts for the brake job. Well, it was pouring down rain and pretty slow in there. So they just swiped the bike away from me, ran it downstairs and fixed it up good as new.

Fancy 2nd hand bike $30
Brake job $20
Bag 'o reflectors $9
Seeing your 5-year-old hopping over the curbs on a 24" mountainbike: Priceless