Traveling broke takes more work. Today I dropped cash on new bearings for the hubs on my bike, but only spent $1.06 on food. Before that, I tried to case all the places that sell bread, but almost everyone was roundabout in telling me they didn’t trash expired stuff. I don’t know if they knew the words they were speaking were not reflecting reality–bread gets shipped, not all of it gets sold (because it’s better to absorb the extra cost than to disappoint the customer), and when it gets old, it gets thrown in the trash–but a confrontational beggar is a self-destructive one, so I moved on.

And I moved on. And I was rejected several times before stumbling into Jimmy John’s where I knew they sold day-old loaves for loose change. Fifty three cents, it turned out. I purchased two. They said if I came back at 3:00 AM, I could have any that were left over. I went back at 2:51 AM and scored nine loaves of bread. That’s bounty enough to feed me for the whole weekend.

I can’t afford this trip. But I also know that a decade from now these petty financial stresses will be faded from my memory while Saturday’s wedding will remain. I should be more fiscal. I shouldn’t have brought my bike, much less paid for repairs. It’s auxilliary, it’s unnecessary. And what isn’t? Food. How ironic, then, that I will spend money on the one and not the other, and yet it reflects something interesting: time on the saddle feeds the spirit, food on the table feeds the body.

I guess it’s clear where my priorities are.