In the Green

Let's cut straight to the chase: I am not a patient person. My life as I know it is built on a foundation of impulse decisions. Everything from college selection to the cars I have bought over the years to dropping out of grad school to "quitting my dayjob" to moving out to Washington to the house we bought has been a decision made, what some would consider, on the fly. Hell, Kristin and I still own a nice piece of property in North Carolina that was bought on a whim.

Looking back on my life up this point, I see only two big decisions that I've made that I actually took a modicum of time to consider. The obvious decision was asking Kristin to marry me. But even that wasn't much of a dilemma -- much to the chagrin of my dormmates, she and I essentially lived together for four years at college anyway. The only other "big decision" I've made in which I've really did a whole pros/cons thing with is the decision to buy this damn Moots I'm still waiting for. Which is kind of fitting actually, as Kristin pointed out the other night that this bike is costing a good 2-3 times her engagement ring. D'oh! As an aside, I'll have you know I bought that ring while still in college and she has received many compliments on it over the past 10 years.

Note to self: Make sure you get Kristin something very, very, very nice for our upcoming ten year anniversary.

Back to the Moots, I spent nearly three months going back and forth on this bike choice and the exhale I let out when I finally did swipe the plastic in mid-January could probably be heard all the way in Steamboat Springs, where my highly-anticipated new bike would be built. I was told it would take 6 to 8 weeks.

We all know that nothing ever takes less time to build than anticipated. So I waited about 7 weeks and then had the shop in which I ordered the frame make a call to Moots to see where we're at. We were told 1-2 more weeks. Okay, fine, I can live with that.

So I waited some more. Knowing that we are now in that illustrious second week, I had the guys at Ti-Cycles order me the fork and headset that I wanted and, as mentioned earlier in the week, I even got the wheels ready to roll.

I continued to wait, but it was clear that my trademark impatience -- which, by the way, has yet to stear me wrong -- has set in. I finally decided to call Moots directly and was told -- drumroll please -- 1 to 2 weeks.

How'd you guess?

Apparently they use a color-coded system to help track expected delivery dates and my bike "is in the green" which means 1 to 2 weeks. The woman on the other end of the line said there is a chance that my bike "went green" right when the shop called to check and that it might be shipping this week, but it's more likely at least another week of waiting. Or two.

Oh well, I guess it could have been worse. Waiting for a bike pales in comparison to other things. Like, for instance, Kristin could have left me on my knee waiting for an answer for 6 to 8 weeks. Yeah, I'd rather wait for the bike.