SitNCycle: Return to Sender

A friend told me about buying a SitNCycle and how much it had helped him keep in shape. Looking for anything that would help combat my expanded presence, I went online and saw what I thought was going to be a way to exercise my way through my favorite TV shows.

I ordered the $245 machine ("Full Refund" if it didn't work for me) in my favorite color, aqua, and it arrived about 10 days later. Cool, I'll see if I can get this set up and lose a few despicable pounds. The commercial looked promising. An elderly woman (older than me, anyway) was pictured using the bike in front of the TV (yes, that's for me!) and easily carrying it from the living room to a hall closet.

But I think there must have been hidden wires in that video that help lift the bike off the ground to make it look so easy to carry around. My experience wasn't so cool.

For one, it was delivered to my porch, an easy walk to the garage. I could barely lift one end of the box off the ground. I finally dragged it to the garage, displacing all the pea gravel in the path. I cut the box open and found about a dozen pieces that I, presumably, could put together with help from a small-print booklet. First thing I found was a sandwich bag full of washers, bolts and nuts. That alone weighed a pound. I disassembled the parts, separating everything from the thick styrofoam packaging. I better keep this, thinking maybe I might have to return it.

There was no "might" about it. The base of the bike was too heavy to lift out of the box to set it upright to begin assembly. I stood over the mess. considering asking my "friend" to help me put this together. But even if he did assist me, I would still have to carry the thing around whenever I wanted to cycle. I carefully put everything back in the box, less the packing foam, and slid it onto a handcart, which i could use to move it.

Two weeks later I went out to look at it again. No, it wasn't my weak muscles that are to blame, but I could barely maneuver the cart. Another week went by before I decided that I wanted to return it to the company for my refund. I carefully packed it all in the box to (somehow) get it from the floor, into my car, and take it to the FedEx office. I accomplished this task, and shipped it back for my "Full Refund."

However, the cost of shipping was my problem. The company wouldn't provide a mailing label. The guy at the FedEx place asked me if the company would reimburse me for the shipping because it was going to cost $110. No, the shipping was my responsibility, so I'd pay it.

About two weeks later I got the $245 deposited back into my bank account. So this misadventure resulted in a true refund of $135, less the shipping. The company did offer me $35 if I'd just keep the bike, but at that point I didn't want to see the thing again. And what would I do with it if I did keep it? In a couple of years it would be still shoved in the corner of the garage being used as a clothes rack, the destiny of most exercise bikes.

But probably not still in the boxes they came in.

Leon's Homeless, Thanks to Texas' Efforts to Disenfranchise

I met Jackson last Tuesday in front of Carl’s Jr. on Convoy Street. I had just left my car to be repaired so I had the day to hang out. I gave Jackson, holding a worn cardboard sign asking for help, a $20 bill after we’d talked for a while.

“What’s your story?” I asked him, something I often do when I meet the homeless.

He had been in jail for two months for carrying a nunchuck, he said, something the police said was an illegal weapon. “When I got out, two women befriended me about a week later. All smiles, they were, and told me I could trust them. The next morning all my i.d. was gone.”

He’d been trying to get his Social Security payments, but didn’t have any identification. He did, however, have written down his SS and Texas driver’s license numbers. I thought maybe I could help this guy, so I invited him into Carls for something to eat and some snacks for the rest of the day.

His eventual story was so believable and fraught with the kind of details that bothered me so much (sleeping under store fronts, spending the day begging, a family that disowned him) that I asked him how I could help even more. There were things I could do. At least give him some more money for some thrift store clothes, and buy some groceries for a couple of days.

Knowing the weather was going to get nasty, I said I’d pay for him to stay at a motel for a couple of days. He had enough information that I could pay for a Texas birth certificate to be mailed to me, and I would help him get some i.d.

After a cab ride to the library on Aero drive and use of a computer I could enter what info I could and see what would happen. This is when I stepped into a legal morass that has kept me awake in the middle of the night.

We found the Texas web site and entered all the information, including birthdate, SS and DL numbers, and parents first, middle and last names. I was so relieved that I could help him in this way. But then we discovered how Texas and other states have effectively blocked the disenfranchised with this kind of mind-boggling hurdle: Jackson needed an “audit number” next to his DL photo to verify his identity.

Jackson didn’t have such a number, as it wasn’t something he knew from his original license. But to get his birth certificate for proof of identity we needed to be able to prove his identity, despite all the pertinent details.

I was flummoxed. There’s got to be a way to help him around this dead end. Maybe I could help him get his SS, which had been denied him. The next morning I took him to the Aero Drive SS office with all the information he had, details I expected the clerk there would honor. Nope. In fact, his record showed that, without proper i.d. there was a fraud alert that blocked his access to  $920 a month in disability payments he had been owed since early last year.

Jackson left the office in an understandable rage, and I followed him to the car under such a cloud of futility that I told him there must be a way around this. I took him back to his motel, at least happy he was out of the rain last Thursday, stopping at a market for food that would last a couple of days, at least until I’d done more research.

We needed to somehow get a copy of his birth certificate. Could he contact his mom in Houston? No, he couldn’t reach her after she moved. His brother and sister refuse to take his calls.

Yes, I provided Jackson with all the info on homeless shelters, food pantries, and other services, which he said hadn’t been as much help as he’d hoped. Whether this was true, I just had to take his word for it. 

My friends have told me I’ve done more for a homeless person than they would have ever done. True, but I couldn’t get him his birth certificate.

I had paid for the motel through Monday night, glad that I could keep Jackson dry for a couple more days. Saturday I called him and explained that I’d done everything I could to help him.

“What am I going to do now?” he asked. “Maybe money for the bus to Los Angeles. I’ll have better luck up there.”

But how would that be any better than San Diego?

“At least I wouldn’t be here any more,” he said. I explained again that I’d done all I could.

“Thanks for helping me to Tuesday morning. I’ll check out when I’m supposed to, and hang out in Kearny Mesa.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“So am I,” and he ended the call.