Typical Day
Petal Pusher starts her day bright and early at 8:00AM with a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, yogurt and granola, and a bagel with cream cheese. Oh, and just about anything else she can find, including a big hunk of last night's chocolate cake washed down with copious amounts of coffee. One of the big perks of her job as a NYC bike courier is that Petal can eat anything she wants and never gains a pound—that's because she's cycling about ten hours a day and covering over forty miles of ground.
Petal is decked out for work in her cycling pants and shirt that will wick the sweat off of her and keep her dry—provided it doesn't storm again, like it did yesterday. That was a drag. Petal hates working in the rain, though she hates the snow even more. The salt that they put down to melt the snow is murder on her tires. She can count on a repair a day during big snow storms.
But it's April, and though NYC has been known to get a flurry or two this late in the year, odds are it'll only rain. No matter, Petal is out for the day. She gets a call on her phone that doubles as a walkie-radio from dispatch. There's a pickup at Lincoln Center and a drop off on East 32nd Street that has to be done pronto. She knows she'd better get a move on. It's a long haul from Brooklyn.
"Somebody must've forgotten their theater tickets," she wonders aloud. Petal puts on her helmet and gloves, grabs her messenger bag and water, then hops on her bike. Another day of freedom, she thinks, as she heads out into the morning sun.
It's rush hour and the streets are dangerously packed, but Petal feels at home dodging and weaving through the flow of traffic. She even enjoys the exhaust from passing cars—it keeps her feet warm.
Petal's knees and joints start to ache as she makes her way across the Brooklyn Bridge and into Manhattan. "They're just waking up to greet the day," she thinks. Petal has grown accustomed to the aches and pains that come with the territory of cycling as much as she does. "I'm gonna have one bad case of arthritis when I get older," she thinks. But it's hard for Petal to care: She's in her twenties and plans to keep working as a bike messenger through her thirties, if she can. She loves her life and the ability to make money from doing the thing she likes to do most. It brings her great happiness, if not much money.
Petal's three roommates have been urging her to quit and get a "real job" that pays more than minimum wage, but she doesn't want to spend her life cooped up in an office. She loves the adventure that every day brings, and she adores the streets of New York City. Maybe it's because she grew up in a small town suburb in Iowa, far away from the hustle of the city, but she can't imagine doing anything else.
Petal makes good time to Lincoln Center from Brooklyn. People don't realize that when you eliminate the hassle of traffic or the prolonged subway stops, the city's boroughs aren't stretched that far apart. It's the traffic and congestion that makes the simplest trips take hours.
When Petal gets to the box office for the pickup, she is surprised with an instrument case...and a rather large one at that.
"It's a tuba, is that going to be a problem?" asks the woman at the box office, who obviously expected a male messenger. The woman raises her eyebrow at Petal, who doesn't lose her smile.
"No trouble at all. I was just expecting something like theater tickets, that's all."
"No, it's a tuba and it's heavy. You sure you're going to be able to carry that?"
"Absolutely, that's what these are for." Petal takes out some bungee chords and straps the tuba to her back. It's heavy, it's awkward, but it isn't the worst thing she's had to schlep across town. (That would be a Christmas tree. Boy was that a challenge.)
Petal takes off with the tuba toward her destination. On the way, her balance is slightly thrown askew from the weight of the instrument, but she gets the hang of it. When she delivers it to the address across town, the receiver who signs for it gives her a look of shock.
"I can't believe you could carry that thing. It looks bigger than you."
"Oh, I manage," says Petal, who graciously accepts the $10 tip for her trouble.
She radios in that she's finished with her first job and is immediately given a second. This time, Petal needs to bike down to Wall Street, where there are some important documents that need to be delivered to mid-town, pronto.
Relieved that it's something light like documents, Petal takes off in a flash and makes record time to Wall Street. The doorman at the building where she's doing the pickup eyes her suspiciously. Petal gets the documents, puts them in her messenger bag, and heads back up to mid-town.
She hitches a ride uphill, holding onto the back of a bus for a bit, saving a bit of pedal power. The receiver in mid-town comments on how fast Petal was, which makes her feel good, however a better tip than a single dollar would have been nice.
Petal lets dispatch know she's available and gets another pick-up. This time she has to go back to Brooklyn, pick something up, and bring it back over into Manhattan in the East Village. Ugh.
Oh well, at least it hasn't started to rain yet, she thinks. At that moment, a small rumble of thunder escapes as the sky darkens. Of course.
Petal slows down through the rainstorm. What she loses in time, she makes up for in the knowledge that she has a better chance of surviving if she's careful. Her worst wipeouts have been during the rain, when the roads are slick and people are careless.
Once she had someone open their car door in a hurry to get out and cross the street, whacking Petal off her bike and sending her careening through the back of a cab window. That was her first concussion, and the accident left her badly bruised and out of work for nearly a month. Petal is super careful now riding close to cars that have just pulled into their spots—especially in the rain. It's just one more thing to watch out for, along with the myriad of things that can go wrong on her journey. An adventure, she thinks. Every day is an adventure.
By 6:00PM, Petal is beat. She turns her log into dispatch downtown, grabs a pastry and a Coke from the corner deli, and begins the slow trek back to Brooklyn. She had only nineteen deliveries today; however, they were long ones and a few paid $8 instead of the usual $5 because they were rush jobs. She made $25 in tips and cleared $130—a good day overall.
Petal peels off her clothes the minute she gets in her apartment. She hops into the shower, then afterward finishes off the rest of the chocolate cake and some leftover lasagna before heading to bed. She falls asleep quickly, but not before she hears the weather forecast on the TV. Snow flurries. In April. Of course.