So, Finslippy was talking about stinky Gingko fruits, the other day, and I was thinking, wow, I’m glad we don’t have Gingko trees here in Kansas City, because wow, that would suck to ride my bike through a pile of dead leaves and rotten puke-fruit and then have that shit stuck in my tires.
Ahem.
So, my route home takes me under a couple of railway bridges, both of which are dank and smelly places often redolent of pee and rotting garbage. I just hold my breath and pedal fast. Last Friday night, coming home from the First Friday Art Crawl, I passed through the second bridge and smelt something just plain horrible, and thought that some Friday-night reveler had tossed his cookies somewhere just outside of the pedestrian tunnel of the bridge.
Then on Monday, I rode beneath the bridge, and smelled that horrible stench again. Good grief, that’s some barf with some staying power.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I pass through the same place, every night, thinking “bleargh, ohmygodeeeeewww!”
On Thursday I read Finslippy.
On Friday, I notice that the yellow leaves strewn all around the street on Van Brunt, just North of the railway bridge are fan-shaped.
On Friday that little lightbulb above my head switched on. Gingko. Gingko! Stink-o! No freakin’ wonder. Also, Finslippy wasn’t exaggerating. Holy whew, those are some stinkin’-assed fruits. Also–I was riding my mountain bike. With the semi-slicks. Which were now packed full of stink-fruit residue. An emergency session with a bottle of Simple Green and the garden hose rendered my bike fit to bring inside.
Tonight, I’m taking a different route home.