and POUNCE

Some things are too hideous to contemplate, things along the lines of having this rotting banana pushed into your ears, mouth and nose, mashed into your hair or shoved down the back of your neck. I recently had cause to mistakenly chance across an equally unpleasant thought, of the type which rapidly multiplied into similar related scenarios, all unpleasant but all unfortunately quite likely to have occurred in real life, whereas bananae such as this generally don't attack people even if they do resemble a malevolent rotting squid from the side.

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Some years ago my sister donated an old bicycle to my mother for her to use when not using her official Post Office-issue welded-drainpipes long-wheelbase tank thing. I'm not sure if it was my sister's knocking-around bike or one of her friends' and can't remember what it was that the pedals had to be removed but it was probably because they had some form of shoe-attachment device in place. One of them came off with extreme ease but the other resisted all attempts to remove it up to and including a seventeen-stone man standing on the end of the foot-long spanner whilst a thirteen-stone man prevented the crank from rotating. Nothing would shift it on the morning we first tried, nor the next day after an overnight grease-soaking, though it was eventually removed on a later date by my dad after he bought or borrowed a two-foot-long-handled pedal spanner. Around that time I was using a pair of pedals which had an Allen socket inside of the thread as well as spanner-flattenings on the other side but since had to replace them, going for a sensible and convenient old-fashioned rat-trap design which unfortunately lacked a sensible modern Allen socket. As one side of each pedal slips a bit in heavy rain they're getting replaced but I'm having similar difficulty getting the right-hand pedal to shift, though the left only required slight loosening before it glode off. My adjustable wrenches are all slightly too fat-bladed and winky little multi-tools far too short and weak but I did find a standalone spanner of the right size which is now a little loose after bruising the heels of my hands but otherwise achieving nothing. Hopefully the bicycle- and pedal-vending shop will be sympathetic enough to spare ten seconds to hoick at it with their longest-handled pedal-spanner on the way home tomorrow. I almost certainly greased it when it was installed as the reason for its installation was the failure of its predecessor's insufficiently-sealed bearings to sufficiently withstand the cold and damp of winter use.