i'm that idiot

My birthday was in July. It was awesome. People showered me with gifts, both lavish and shitty.

On the lavish side, my mom bought me a really nice bike computer from Wheel & Sprocket in CrAppleton. Turns out, that bike computer was meant to actually fit into the frame of only a select few hyper-douchey road bikes. Kinda cool, the speed/cadence sensor fits right into either the chainstay or somewhere in the fork. But I don't have one of those bikes, because fuck Mary Burke (she worked for Trek, who owns Bontrager). So it needed to be returned. For those keeping score, it was the Bontrager Trip 300/DuoTrap S Combo. No shit, that's the actual name. Looks like an awesome product though.

Note here that the packaging is poorly labeled, and there is no way my mom would have known that it was compatible with only three different bikes. And of course the asshole at the counter isn't obligated to ensure a solid customer experience.

Anyway, the return sounds easy: proprietary technology + my mom not being cheap = probably a hefty return value. My mom bought me this awesome bike pump too.

So when my wife was back in the Fox Cities area, she kindly went to the Wheel & Sprocket shop location in OshCrap, as she agreed to exchange it for me. Ah, but the forgotten variable introduced by a highly intelligent and business savvy woman: the cost of doing business. See she needed a helmet, and bartered her way into a new one, using a superior brain and assumed surplus return value, and her good looks. I put a post it note on the box, explaining what I needed: a bike computer that will measure everything, with sensors that are universally compatible, and a helmet for you (not you, but for my wife).

Now we have: (proprietary technology + my mom not being cheap) - a new helmet = goddamnit.

After the transaction went down, a recap over the phone sounded benign enough. She went and got a bike computer that will work on my bike, really any decent one would do, and she got herself a nice little helmet for that nice little head of hers. All is well.

A week later, the beautiful woman reappeared at our house with the bike stuff! And other stuff!

Her return brought me this, the Bontrager Trip 300 computer. Notice it is the same computer from above. Upon opening the box and discovering that it was labeled exactly right, with only a computer and no sensors, I could feel the pangs of #ragesweat.

So I did what any sane person would do - called the bike shop to make sure I wasn't missing something. Luckily they were still open. I gave him a brief run down of what happened, and explained to the dude what I was holding in my hands (not a wiener, weirdos), so he went and grabbed the same product to compare with me. Turns out, he confirmed that yeah, I simply have just the computer and would need the sensors.

Here's the kicker, he went on to say I would need the DuoTrap Sensor...you know, the one I just told him was JUST FUCKING EXCHANGED BECAUSE IT IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH MY BIKE.

I detected confusion.

Naturally, I went in a little bit more detail to explain to him what happened, almost exact verbiage here: my mom accidentally bought the wrong computer, and the turd at the counter didn't say anything about this product being compatible with only a few bikes, and then my wife exchanged the Trip 300 DuoTrap S Combo, and the idiot at the counter gave her the same goddamn computer, though minus the sensors. Wouldn't the computer need sensors so it can COMPUTE!?

His response? A meek, "I'm that idiot".

At least he was nice about it.

What is the takeaway here? The Wheel & Sprocket chain is like the Kohl's of bike shops.