im - 9/10/2007 10:08:00 AM

It was the Japanese folks last night in town so we wanted to do something fun. It started out with Rie, Shuji, Shuhei and myself biking over to Triple Rock for happy hour. Jason from Salsa showed up a bit later, and then Girl Carl walked through looking for someone to drink with. She chose us. The two men seemed enamored with carl, and took a shitload of pictures of her. I guarantee she ruined my chances of appearing in the magazine, but who would prefer to look at this git over her? After a few beers each, Rie said she wanted to eat the most expensive sushi in Minneapolis. I suggested Origami, and off we went. When we had arrived and locked up our bikes I went inside to secure a table, only to find there would be a one hour wait. There is another sushi place called Nami about three blocks away, so we decided this would be our course of action. We locked our bikes out front and got a table very quickly. Randy Chu Hi phoned to find out where we were, then arrived a few minutes later with three ladies in tow (that Chu Hi, I tell ya). They were there to say their goodbyes to the Japanese, then headed out to the streets for even more fun. The rest of us finished up and headed outside. I had locked up the six bikes with a long cable lock, and Shuji had locked up four of the bikes with his chain lock. Unfortunately, Shuji was unable to find his key, and thus four of the bikes were stranded there, and so were we. Meanwhile, Carl headed somewhere to find some tools, and I did likewise. Shuji and Shuhei walked up and down 2nd Ave. N. to see if they could find the key but never did. Carl returned with some tools but they were useless in trying to cut the hardened steel links. I got on the phone to Randy and asked if he had a bolt cutter in his garage. He said no, but promised to be there soon with some tools to try and break the lock. He showed up after a bit, but the tools he brought were equally useless on this lock. While he was fiddling with it, however, a drunk guy with his girfriend stumbled out of Nami and noticed that we looked like we were in trouble. He suggested we go into Nami and ask them for a bolt cutter. "That sounds reasonable," I answered. "All sushi shops have bolt cutters." "Well, why wouldn't the owner of Nami have a bolt cutter?" he replied. No answer from us. He continued trying to offer assistance until Randy finally politely refused his help and offered a "You're not really helping, but thanks anyway." Drunk Guy wasn't having it, and as tensions started to rise he said to Randy, "Dude, what's your sign?" WTF??? To which randy just returned a glare and a less than polite "Just f*ck off." Drunk guy didn't know what to say, so he turned around and walked back inside Nami with his lady, saying nothing. About 5 minutes passed before four cops on bikes showed up, surrounding us. "What's the problem here?" said one of them. We replied that we had lost our key and were trying to get our bikes free. They then relaxed and started cracking jokes with us, telling us that someone had called the cops on us, saying we were trying to steal bikes. (Way to go Drunk Guy. You showed us!). Meanwhile, as this is all happening, Carl uses her big brain and walks over to the police station to ask for help. In the end the cops showed up and cut our bikes free, with Shuhei shooting pictures of the whole ordeal. The officer in charge cut the lock, and only then paused to laughingly ask us, "Are these really your bikes?" They even posed for a group photo when it was all finished. Thank god for the mpls police. Randy and I went back into Nami to thank Drunk Guy but he had already bolted. In the end we all had a good laugh about it, and it should be a nice addition to the magazine article the Japanese folks came to write about the Minneapolis bike scene. -----