The Side Effects of Endorphins

How do you deal with uncertainty?

I’m not certain it’s going be 362 words here. I’ll just ignore that uncertainty. So it all started with an idea. My wife decided she wanted to do a bike ride in the San Juan Islands. She generally is not the risk taker.

The Bike Rack

Naturally, I’m up for an adventure. The first thing we needed was a bike rack. So Friday was my day to build the bike rack and hook it up to the car. This certainly is not my forte. There was uncertainty in every step in building and securing the bike rack. I abhor projects like this. The big question how certain was I, that our bicycles would not come tumbling off the car, into the middle of the freeway, causing a 50 car pileup. I followed every step in the directions and tightened every bolt, making sure everything was secure.

We were uncertain whether we could make the 1230 ferry boat To Lopez island. The 2 o’clock to Friday Harbour seemed more certain. We preferred Lopez, but decided on Friday Harbor 

Then There is Donna

We got about 20 miles from home and I realized I did something stupid with my cell phone. We located it a half mile from our house and decided to drive back there. There was my phone sitting in the middle of the street 20 miles away. But we needed to get gas in the car. It would be pushing it if we didn’t get gas, but it was important that we get back to the phone quickly.

We opted to get gas at Donna’s. I was not even certain it was a business.. Donna asked me how much gas I wanted. I said I wanted to fill it up. I told her I was not certain of the amount. She said we can only do an exact amount. I told Donna I’ll take $40 of gas.

Donna, growing impatient, asked me what pump I was on. I told her the one with the gray RAV4 .

Donna told me she needed a number.

I told her seven. I’m not certain that was correct..

After filling up about $20, the pump started pumping rather slowly.. If I stood there and filled up the whole tank, it would take me another 10 minutes. Time was of the essence. I hedged my bet and put in 35.00 and headed back to where my cell phone was last located. By now we had lost the signal.

Intersection of Maple and 23rd.

I got back to the intersection where the Cell Phone was last located. I walked up and down the street a few times. I saw a car parked near where the Cell Phone was last located I banged on the window and the guy in the car asked me if I was looking for a cell phone.

My wife was certain he stole our information, I was certain that that he had not. The phone was now dead. But he did have my phone and he politely gave it back to me.

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is all around us. We looked at each other and we were not certain we could make the 2 o’clock to Friday Harbour. We weren’t completely certain the bike rack would work. We weren’t even certain that we could bike 25 miles in 2 1/2 hours.. We weren’t even certain where to park our bike to get on the ferry.

I do need to take a refresher course on changing bike tires. I used to be able to do this quickly. but not anymore. Getting a flat tire on the island would’ve been a mini disaster. So somehow we took that risk.

Lessons Learned

That is the weird thing about it. My wife and I are so different when it comes to risktaking. But on this Saturday, our decision-making and risk taking abilities were perfectly aligned. We ended up having a wonderful ferry ride, a great 25 mile bike ride and an afternoon together. We now know how to use our bike rack and the hitch on our vehicle.

We also learned that an island getaway is not that far away for us along with reduced the uncertainty in the future.

Without taking risk there are few rewards. I’m certain of that.