Delivery
My new R nine T Pure was scheduled to be delivered on Saturday, early afternoon - perfect, nothing to do now but wait for its arrival. The bike is coming from MAX BMW who offer a delivery service (and also a pick-up and drop-off for service calls).
Kim already had a commitment this morning and would be away until early afternoon, so it was just me and Stella the wonder dog. At about 9:30, I got a call from Fred, the driver from Max’s, saying he was about an hour and a half away. Now, I have to tell you, I had planned to lounge all morning until that bike arrived………..but an early delivery would be okay with me. So, an hour and a half wait it is.
After my third cup of coffee (yeah, that’s right, third cup), I went and sat on the couch, the dog came too and sat within patting distance, and we both seemed okay with the Saturday morning lounging plan I had formulated. Then, in the back of my head I started noticing/hearing the sound of rainfall, which immediately became loud, heavy rainfall – hmm, that sucks, I probably won’t be able to take a ride on the day that I finally get my new bike. Then I thought, “Oh shit, the street is going to flood now”, which means the driveway could flood, which means the beautifully renovated garage could get a wet floor or worse. This is not good; I run to the window, and sure enough, the street is flooding. It's already to the point of running over the sidewalk,
Torrential rain strikes (the word torrential is way overused these days – however, in this text, it is not).
We have two sewer drains in the street, I say we because apparently it’s up to us to clear them during a storm (or wait until the town arrives and then deal with any damage that may have occurred – so I say we have two sewer drains in the street), both right in front of our house, and one of those is right in line with our driveway, and we also have the added bonus of being at a low point on the street, so water does pool up. (We also have a storm drain in the driveway – we’re rich in storm drains.)
Okay, time to react. I went down into the cellar, put on rain boots, a Gore-Tex® rain shell (I mention it’s Gore-Tex only to remind the reader that when I say my shirt was soaked, they’ll know that it must’ve really been coming down for my shell to get saturated - torrential), run outside to the garden shed, grab a spade and a rake, and head to the sewer drains. Yup, they’re completely blocked up by the fallen leaves in the street, which began dropping earlier than usual this year. It doesn’t take much to clog these drains up.
I begin by first trying to locate the drains.
I had to dodge the cars that were driving way too fast down our street. People driving and not paying attention, even on a day like today with heavy rains, is a menace to everyone. When they hit our part of the street they wake up pretty fast because the amount of water they hit, slows their car right down, as wakes come over both fenders – they look stunned like they didn’t know it was raining hard and that all of this accumulating water can actually be a hazard – people.
I fought those drains for a good hour non-stop before they really started moving water again. I got two whirlpools started, one above each drain and from that point, it wasn’t too long before my part of the street was clear (the guy across the street – not so much – he’s got a storm drain too).
With the water threat removed, it was time to get all of my wet clothes off. I went inside to change; I knew the bike would be arriving shortly so I was pretty quick going about it. Then I ran back outside, it was still raining, so I opened up the garage, turned the lights on, and waited safely inside there. I was only there for a couple of minutes before I saw the white van with the MAX BMW logo on the side, and the driver began to back in.
Fred delivered the bike in one of MAX BMW’s vans; they use Mercedes Benz Sprinter vans exclusively, and have eight of them on the road every week. He said he wanted to get the bike into the garage without it getting wet, but because of the narrow drive, and the dog-leg right (mentioned in the previous post), he had to stop short. You could tell Fred has quite a few deliveries under his belt, with everything sopping wet, he gingerly walked that bike down the ramp and into the garage like a pro, asked if I had any questions that he could answer, and then asked me to sign the delivery note. I told him I’d see him again around service time, we shook hands and Fred drove off to his next delivery – he’s a good guy.
I sat on my new bike for a while, put the kick stand down, stood over by the side and thought to myself, “God this is good”.
So much for resting that Saturday morning, I took the afternoon off.