Let There Be Grease

Remember that shower scene in Casio Royale when Vesper says to Bond "It's like there's blood on my hands. And [yada yada yada] I can't get it off." Then Bond puts her hand in his mouth and says something along the lines of "There. They're clean. Can we stop sitting on the shower floor in our million dollar clothes now?" I've watched this movie a million times now and have come to the realization that if you're James Bond and want to clean an imaginary substance off a Standard Bond Girl's hands, what's better than using your mouth? A mouth in all other circumstances is pretty much useless.

I don't even bother trying to clean my hands with my mouth, unless there's barbeque sauce on them. I especially do not use my mouth now that we're "in season" at the bike shop. This is because my hands are always filthy with brake dust, chain lube, road grit, etc. I used just about every scrubbing product available to mechanic-kind; PolyScrub, GoJo, and even the lesser known Mofo Scrub (with it's catchy slogan: "It's a mofuggin' scrub, mofo!"). The problem is not only that I get my hands dirty when I work, it's that I get used to my hands being dirty.

When you get used to seeing your hands blacker than Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, your sense of what's clean and not clean becomes severely impaired. It starts with thinking "Oh my hands are kind of dirty, but that french fry looks really good." Then it progress to the point where you can't tell if the grease on your hands is from the bottom bracket you just overhauled or the El Pollo Rico you just ate with your bare hands. And while you could hardly give a damn about what other people think about your general hygiene, you find yourself having trouble coming back to civilization after a day of wrenching. At the end of the day all you can think about is going home, possibly riding your bike, sleep, and beer. Things like washing your hands and changing your clothes are just obstacles that get in the way. So you throw on a fresh shirt and maybe a different pair of pants, but forget to avoid coming within 3 feet of a bicycle (an impossible feat in a bike shop). And because you didn't strip down naked outside of the shop, you inadvertently get grease and dirt all over your fresh duds. Do this enough times and you'll ruin your entire wardrobe. Washing your hands tends to be an outrageous practice in futility. Having gotten "comfortable" with your dirty hands all day at the shop, any amount of grease that you can remove at close is nothing short of a goddamn miracle. So you stand at the basement sink scrubbing your hands raw for 5 minutes. You take the time to get the tips and in between your fingers, your wrists, and all the way up your forearms to your elbows. Five minutes should be enough time to get all that grime off shouldn't it? Erroneous! No matter what you do to your hands, the damage has already been done. They are permanently dyed a dingy grey-black and will remain that way until you avoid touching bicycles for a long enough period that the stained skins cells eventually die and come off. And to add insult to injury, the work you did to clean your hands will never be good enough as you realize soon after you've dried your hands and left the shop that you missed at least two giant spots of grease on your arms, walked by six bicycles on your way out, gotten grease on your fresh clothes, and look exactly the same as you did before you attempted to "clean" yourself. Fuck...