Grate

You know how great it is when you get home after a long day at work and your significant other has left you a special something sitting on the kitchen counter just to remind you that they love you? Well, that's what it's like every day when you're a bicyclist and the one you love is Kansas City.

I know, I know, on the surface Kansas City seems all tough and grizzled, but underneath that callous exterior KC's a real sweetheart who knows how to make me feel like a giddy schoolgirl.

Every day when I ride my bike home I get little reminders of how much KC loves me in the form of sweet nothings like this:

It's like coming home at 2 in the morning and finding a brownie on the kitchen counter with a little note that says "I love you". There are little love notes like this all over the place. Just east of the bridge over I-29/35 on 10th st., southbound on the Paseo just north of Truman, on Paseo just north of Independence Ave., and this beauty at 8th and Harrison, just to name the ones I see often.

I know, a lot of people would think that this is really a sign of KC being abusive and downright mean. But I know KC loves me and this is how he shows it. It's like being the wife in a Christian Domestic Discipline household: the threat of a sound spanking (or in this case, of catching my front wheel in one of these at 25 mph as I come down the Paseo heading for Cliff Drive in the middle of the night and going headfirst over my handlebars) is the thing that keeps me in line. This is KC's way of telling me that I am loved: by reminding me every day that KC is a stern, tough father figure who isn't going to make my life soft so I'd better toe the line and bring my A-game every time I get in the saddle.

Oooh, daddy! It hurts so good!