July 8 - I Get It, "I'm Old"

Time Magazine was donating some items to Chicago Public Schools.

They commissioned our messenger company to deliver the items.

For once, worthwhile work!

Now I can scratch Peace Corps off my Bucket List.

Harry Reese designed the Time Life Building.

It looks like a large brown box.

On the 19th floor a crude cardboard replica waited for me.

It stood six feet tall, sat four feet wide on either side.

The box weighed as much as I did before I got "fat".

I wrestled it like an insubordinate vending machine onto a tipsy cart.

It took a few tries, and cost the walls a few nicks.

A fucky, grunty experience.

The magazine was also kind enough to donate six unwieldy dry erase boards.

The 4' x 8' dry erase board proved most difficult to:

* Lift

* Carry

* Move

* Fit into freight elevator

* Fit through doors

* Fit into second freight elevator

* Like

But I got 'er done!

I mean.

I helped to make a difference.

Oh but wait.

I still had to fit this crap- I mean these tools for success - in the van.

While staring at the van, an old bike messenger friend approached.

It was Max.

Max has been on the streets for almost two decades.

For years we worked for the same messenger company.

Sometimes, as a sign of the end of the day, he would broadcast the accordion busker's river ditties through all of our brick radios.

He's a short guy with long stringy hair.

He looks like a ratty version of Eric Burdon.

When I started messengering he had brown hair.

Now his grey locks poke like dead straw out of his weathered leather Freddie Mercury hat.

We made eye contact.

"Hey Max," I said.

"Hey," he returned suspiciously.

He didn't recognize me.

Five steps later he snapped his fingers.

"Oh wait, I know you. 37!"

Actually it's 58, but who cares.

"Yeah, Tony," I smiled.

"Tony!" he exclaimed like a human pizzeria.

He looked at my task.

"You're gonna fit all that in that?"

"Yup."

He smiled.

"Gettin' old, huh?"

"Yup," I confessed, cautiously jumping down from the dock to the van.

Max helped me load in the enormous box for a couple of seconds.

"I'll do that when I'm old," he announced.

I continued my fucky, grunty duty.

"I said, 'I'll do that when I'm old!'" he repeated, a little louder this time.

"Thanks, Max. I heard you the first time." Those fucking dry erase boards - I mean those inspirational, life-changing dry erase boards - had accidentally torn up the interior of the van.

"I get it," I said to Max in lieu of farewell.

Maybe I don't miss bike messengering as much I thought I did.

After all, now I deliver knowledge.

Verdict: Win