When Work Doesn't Call--the Stomach Does!

So what does an unemployed bike commuter do when the road no longer goes north to the office? He goes to Safeway for groceries. Where else! Instead of spread sheets it's sandwich spread. Excel? How about Ex-lax. From Power Point to Power Bars.
By George, a standard pannier for a small wheel bike does hold three bags of groceries. And the rack, along with several cubic yards of bungee cord, will successfully portage a case of Coke. Or, if you've gazed at this blog's flagship photo, a 20 pound bag of Dog Chow, with nary a kibble split loose on the way home, despite DC's adeptness at preventing level pavement for any stretch longer than your middle finger.
There is one bike rack at the Safeway on Davenport, but you might miss it. It looks more like Mork from Ork's L'eggs spaceship; or some twisted precambrian bivalve you might see on late-night Discovery Channel science geek porn. The standard welded dual-bike rack is covered with a hot tub-shell-like gray casing that you lift up like Delorean doors, and once your bike is parked beneath, envelops the cycle in a never-to-decompose plastic sheath which you then lock with your U-lock. Magic! It's kind of a pain to hold the pod open while maneuvering your bike underneath, but once in, it provides (what might be merely an illusion of) safety in disguising your bike. All you can see once you've batoned down the hatches is three inches of wheel.
There's nothing like walking around Safeway in a neon reflective vest, either. Until they spot my bike helmet in the cart, their facial expressions range from "oh, he's just off shift at the construction site" to "the poor dear. Jim, hand him the broccoli."
So while I may not be bringing home the bacon, I've got the greens safely tucked away in the pannier. Heading home laden with the groceries gets me a wide berth from traffic, too. Especially when carting the aforementioned twenty pound sack of dog food: "Look Margaret, he had to sell his car to pay for dog food". Hey, I hold my head high and proud. I may be employment challenged at the moment, but I challenge anyone to race me and my groceries home! On second thought, by the end of the trip I'm ready to send the canned goods flying like so much chaff and ballast along Connecticut Ave. I get exercise and feed the homeless all at once. Brilliant.