Saturday, September 24, 2005

The case of the non-sticking glue

I used to study in a university town where bicycles are the most common means of transportation. Almost all students owned bikes and minor bike-problems were common occurrences.

My friend J's bike had got a flat and despite two attempts at fixing it herself, she was not successful in repairing it. Finally, she asked me for help and we both set out to fix the flat in the campus bike shop. After locating the hole in the tyre and getting a "patch" to stick on it, I asked J to get me the glue can. J asked me whether I had a container to hold the glue. Puzzled, I replied that the glue came in its own small container and that she should just get me that. But she insisted that there was no container for the green-colored glue in the big tub on the table. I said, " Oh, that - thats the grease!".

That was when the realization dawned upon J - the previous two times, thinking that it was glue, she had been using grease to stick the patch onto the bike tyre and that's why the fix hadnt worked ...

3 comments:

Shilpa said...

Well Archu,

Finally having all those flat-tyres
paid off na ! You are now an expert at
it and maybe in the future you can
start a cycle potti kadai in China.
:-)

Archana said...

Why China? I will start one in Chennai itself. Of course, I will have a lot of stiff competition from the other potti kadais - but yeah I am "US certified" bicycle puncture specialist na - I will probably attract more customers ;-).

Shilpa said...

China cos u will have more customers
there :-)
Ofcourse Chennai is also good...but
u may not have that many customers !
Hey u can make it a "cyber kadai"..
while u fix the flat...they can sip
tea and browse hehehhe