Out, Dam'd Spot

Mine Surly hath treaded but lightly upon yon carpet, yet here's a spot.

I have been expecting this memo eventually. It was only a matter of time before our memo-crazy apartment manager got around to finding a problem with bikes.

I was just mentioning to the S.O. last week that the volume of memos has dropped considerably since the manager has been on maternity leave.

Earlier in the week she returned from her maternity leave, and that evening there were no fewer than four memos taped to our door.

In this instance, the memo was addressed specifically to our apartment, not the tenants in general, as was the one pertaining to cats in the hall.

Apparently there have been "dirt spots" in the hall, and apparently all forensic evidence points to me and Champion.

I am not sure how the conclusion was reached that only my bike leaves "dirt spots", since the majority of tenants in the building have bikes. The memo doesn't state where the evidence was found. There is only one short hall that I take my bike down. If the spots were not in that hall, they will never be able to pin this rap on me.

The most worrisome aspect of this memo is the possibility of taking further action, such as banning bikes from the building. I don't know how well this would go over, since the landlord provides no outdoor bike storage and many people in the building own bicycles.

It would not be fair to outlaw bikes and not outlaw other wheeled vehicles, such as, say... baby strollers. And if they want to disallow anything that could track "dirt spots" on the carpet, they would have to banish shoes from the building as well.

From now on, will potential tenants be grilled about owning bikes or shoes? Only bikeless, shoeless folk will be approved to move into this bike-and-shoe-free Shangri-la with its catless and welcome-mat free halls (yes, welcome mats, which could help prevent the hideous "dirt marks" have also been banned from the sacred halls of our fifty-year-old apartment building).

Hopefully this will not escalate to anything beyond this memo, but you never know. If sometime in the future she is having a "slow memo" day, it may suddenly occur to her that there have been no bike-related memos in a while.

And, as you can see, my corporation is greatly appreciated, but since I am the CEO I guess it is my responsibility.