Konichiwa, admirers of animatronics!
Isn’t there some rule about insanity having to do with not learning from your previous results? Color me insane.
Last weekend, I was in a mood, so I went to Governor’s Island to get a free pumpkin.
However, pumpkins are heavy and I wanted to do the Fluxx Art scavenger hunt, so I rented a CitiBike to be able to carry my pumpkin while searching the island for art.
I found a slave ship (and I wrote about it on Medium—click here to read that story)
I also found art that wasn’t on the scavenger hunt map, such as a man wearing a mask on a bicycle and a man wearing a mask sweeping rubbish (the second guy was not art, but he was very creepy).
Also I enjoyed this very nice kitchen covered in feminine fabrics—which was not far from an even cooler kitchen by a different artist that was entirely covered in faux fur (imagine the sink completely covered in gray faux shag with a lot of chicken bones in the drain. Yep. It was cool. Go see it for yourselves. The artist is in residence on Colonel’s Row)
I returned the bike to a CitiBike dock that showed as “available” on my Lyft app. Yes—we are back to the main story of how insane it is to repeat activities that you know are a mistake. I am well aware of the snares, but what can I say, I needed the bike to be able to carry my pumpkin around.
Lyft/CitiBike app showed one dock available. One dock was all I needed. I biked over.
What the app did not show, was that that this one dock was also broken. When I returned the bike, no green light went on.
There are choices here. I could have brought the bike a half mile back the way I had come to the CitiBike dock near the Brooklyn Ferry terminal and paid an extra five bucks for the extra time and then walked back the half mile to where I needed to be, which would have made me late for my dinner with the Robot Sushi Cat.
I did not take the bike to another dock. I parked it in the broken dock and left it there. You might think I could have called Citibike right then and spoken to someone, maybe. But nope! It turns out that Lyft has taken over the customer service for Citibikes and they no longer offer the option of phone calls.
Perhaps the customer service is now run by sushi robot cats. Or surly ex-waiters whose jobs have been taken over by broken sushi robot cats.
Instead I am spending literal hours on the phone and on email with Lyft and Citibike—again. Can I tell you how insane it feels to reply to obvious auto-response emails with photos and videos only to get another auto-response “we are sorry you had trouble docking, please dock your bike properly, try lifting the seat”?
Can I tell you how much crazier it feels to call up the customer service number and get a person, only to be told that while he understands my frustration, the best way to deal with this is to reply to the email? “You were contacted by Gustavo, please reply to that email with your complaints. And by the way, please dock your bike as you will be charged for the replacement in 72 hours?”
I finally called the credit card company to stop the charge. They told me they couldn’t dispute the charge because the charge had not yet gone through. The minute it does, I can take it up with the proper department.
This never happens with Pelotons.
OH right. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! I’m going to the Poetry Brothel’s fundraiser tonight. Anyone who is there is very welcome to come hang out with me & hubby. (If you can figure out which masqueraders we are.)
WRITING NEWS:
You can now get my (I love this tale) weird philosophical thriller “The Heaven - The Earth” in print (aka the bird story) — because After Dinner Conversation has just decided to release all of their very cool online ethics/philosophical short story collections in one fell swoop as retro-issued print magazines. Here’s the issue that I am in - you’ll know it is the right one because my name is RIGHT ON THE COVER! (sorry, did I shout that?)
Also - moving ahead on the story collection. Editing is in process! (not by me, by editors!)
Go do Halloween stuff!
Enjoy the creativity! Add to it! Happy Halloween!
robot sushi cat!?