I Ride the Dirty Little Bike

I finally got around to getting the brakes on my bike fixed.

Yeah.

Nine whole months after figuring out how to say "My brakes are squeaky." And I couldn't even remember the "squeaky" part so I had to rely on charades evil twin, the noisemaker. So I pushed my bike around the corner (much to the amazement of two older folks--it was either that I was pushing it, that I have a little folding Dahon bike that isn't common, or that it was completely engulfed in green pollen).

Me: "Hallo. Meine bremsen sind weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" (Hello, My brakes are making noise--but I make the noise)

German owner: Die bremsen sind kaputt? (the brakes are completely broken?)

Me: Nicht kaputt, nur weeeeeeeeeeee!" (no, they just weeeeeeeeeeee)

And then he said something that I'm sure meant, "Oh they're making noise when you use them."

After a back and forth of confirming that my brakes were in fact only two years old, they made some adjustments and had me try them out. They thought I was nuts (ok, I admit that making the noise would at least render me peculiar). But you know how it is--the noise only happens with you alone, when you take it in to be fixed it doesn't happen, which is what happened here. So I took it out for a test drive, lo and behold it didn't make any noise (you just watch, it will tomorrow!) and the guy waved me away with no charge.