The guy serving the daily entree special in the cafeteria asks “How often do you ride your bike to work?” I answer the question and he comments about how he couldn’t do it. I state “it’s not so hard” and take my food.
As I walk away I wonder how he knew about my riding. Hundreds of people work in the facility. When I arrive at work I go straight to the locker room to shower and change. In my memory I’ve never talked with one of the cafeteria folks about riding. Yet somehow my commuting by bike is remarkable enough that people have talked about it. Enough people so that word of my bicycling has gone beyond my workgroup and circulated through the building and ended up being talked about by the cafeteria staff. The rumor, the gossip, is detailed enough that this guy knows it is me to ask about the bicycling. It’s the first we’ve talked outside of what’s necessary for food ordering.
I’m surprised by the rumor going around, by the fact that people find it worth talking about, that the talk is detailed enough that (essentially) a stranger knows me as the guy to rides a bike to work.
Hopefully I’m giving some of my co-workers ideas.
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