To get to work, I will now pretend to be E. T. First, there’s the problem of me going high speeds and having a general tendency to clumsiness. Solution? Big fat helmet. Then there’s the issue of my contacts falling out from the wind as I ride, which is solved by groovy orange sunglasses I bartered for today. By far the best biking accessory is my new smog mask. This silver alien accessory is an air filter, but it’s made to look cool: instead of standard-issue white hospital thing, I have a futuristic, stretch contraption. This is probably the most necessary of my weird biking accessories: coming home and hacking for five minutes after doing the equivalent of double-digit times mistaking a tail pipe as a straw was getting a little old. It’s definitely harder to breath through but makes my ride much easier; this effect may be mainly psychological, but it’s still worth wearing a goofy mask. If nothing else, my “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” costume is a nice way to screw with the traffic cameras.