Writes Kerry in Brooklyn: “I just moved into a new apartment, and they don’t have secured outside parking for bikes. My place is NYC-sized, so naturally I decided to lock one of my bikes to the banister right outside my door. Apparently that’s a big no-no in the building.”
Meanwhile, Melanie in Newport, Rhode Island spotted this on the lawn of the Salvation Army in her neighborhood, adding “I, for one, certainly applaud whomever had the baguettes to do such a thing.”
related: The first thing I did when I woke up
162 responses so far ↓
#1
Melissa
The top one gives me an idea: Burrito Bikes are the new Taco Trucks.
Apr 20, 2009 at 7:11 pm rating: 2
#2
MuyMuy
It seems unlikely that anybody would leave a PA on a piece of pita bread out of convenience. I think that it is a message ‘move your bike or the next time you come out here it’ll be covered in hummus!’
That hummus and bike seat was fucking delicious.
Apr 20, 2009 at 7:17 pm rating: 1
#3
TheOldSchool
She’s lucky the bike wasn’t eaten.
There are lots of people who consider them delicacies.
There’s a French guy who made a career of gobbling up bikes. Once he even ate a Cessna 150. How green is that?
Bananas and eggs made him sick.
Kerry: park your bike in the kitchen. Leave the bananas locked outside on the railing.
Apr 20, 2009 at 7:23 pm rating: 12
#4
VB
This reminds me of all those commercials where they re-purpose objects. On a low carb diet? Use those leftover tortillas as post-it notes!
Apr 20, 2009 at 7:32 pm rating: 19
#5
marlo
We’re forgetting the important question here: was it a CORN tortilla, or the vastly inferior wheat variety? That’s the only way I’ll be able to judge the quality of the note.
On a related note, I want tacos.
Apr 20, 2009 at 7:45 pm rating: 5
#6
lightspeed
Nope you should definitely not waste food. You should eat it all and get fat. Much better plan.
Apr 20, 2009 at 8:32 pm rating: 14
#7
raiseyourglass
Must be delivered by people going low carb. Is that a basket on the bike. Who has a pink bike with a basket.??Are there streamers on the handle bars?
Apr 20, 2009 at 9:32 pm rating: 3
#8
Flaboy2425
Anonymous notes and unidentified phone calls should be ignored.
Writing notes on food is sick.
Apr 20, 2009 at 9:37 pm rating: 2
#9
you suck at craigslist
I think she should weave the tortilla into the spokes of her bike and see if it makes the same cool noise that baseball cards do.
Apr 20, 2009 at 10:32 pm rating: 31
#10
Grimfool_Reluctant
I once had a tortilla with a ghostly image of Jesus’ face and crown of thorns burned into it (if you held it at a 45-degree angle near a west-facing window) but it didn’t have his statistics (HRs, RBIs, Resurrections) on the back. I was going to save the tortilla to inspire faith and offer hope to the masses, but I did another bowl, and then I thought the face actually looked more like Bart Simpson. Pondering the imponderable, I suddenly realized I had filled the Bart/Jesus with strips of lamb and cow (and sacred guacamole), and that last bowl had made me freaky munchie, so I became one with my lord and my inspiration.
Apr 20, 2009 at 11:20 pm rating: 12
#11
aaa
It seems that tortillas would be inadequate Post-It replacements because a) they’re not sticky and can fall off their intended surface and b) freegans might run off with it and eat it. And you really don’t want to feed the freegans, do you?
Apr 20, 2009 at 11:49 pm rating: 7
#12
Wade
Food always winds up in the waste… or the waist.
Apr 20, 2009 at 11:51 pm rating: 9
#13
mamason
I don’t know how seriously I would take a note written on a tortilla unless that note said, “Eat me.”
Apr 21, 2009 at 2:14 am rating: 3
#14
Canthz_B
Pita’s pockets are filled with hostility.
Apr 21, 2009 at 2:17 am rating: 3
#15
GK
The second picture reminds me of claw for some reason.
baguette
Apr 21, 2009 at 2:29 am rating: 2
#16
Canthz_B
Feeding the birds is wasting food. Welcome to this side of the bridge to the 21st century.
How much more magnanimous it is to give your stale left-overs to some desperate person than to give them some real help?
Apr 21, 2009 at 2:32 am rating: 2
#17
mamason
Stop wasting food, written on a piece of bread… Alanis Morissette would be impressed by the irony in that.
Apr 21, 2009 at 2:38 am rating: 3
#18
electric mural project
Oh damn, that tortilla picture is the best pic that I have seen on PAN. I hope that submitter saved the tortilla, it will just dry up and look basically about the same, but it deserves to be framed!!! Thanks for posting!!!
(oh and BTW, as someone who lives in the Mission district in San Francisco, I have eaten so much Mexican food that it is not Mexican Food, it is just Food, I can confirm that that is a storebought flour tortilla. OKTHXBYE>)
Apr 21, 2009 at 3:01 am rating: 3
#19
claw71
I hope, in both cases, that a soy-based ink was used to convey these messages. Sadly, soy ink, while edible, is not very palatable. That surprises me because soy sauce is wonderful. Do they not use fermented soybeans when making ink? Why not? Besides the fact that homeless people would be licking our newspapers, that is.
Apr 21, 2009 at 5:57 am rating: 5
#20
Meesh
I’d like to think that the first PAN writeruses tortillas for everything. She writes term papers on the,m, uses them as fisbees, puts soap on them i the shower and uses them as washcloths, brushes the cat with them…
Apr 21, 2009 at 8:38 am rating: 1
#21
ozy
Put your crap in *your* apartment, what is wrong with people expecting you to not block the hallway?
Apr 21, 2009 at 8:43 am rating: 1
#22
Meesh
You know, PAN is the Spanish word for bread…
Apr 21, 2009 at 8:54 am rating: 6
#23
Mishee™
Doesn’t anyone else here find it interesting that one of the submitters is “kerry from brooklyn”?
Now I don’t think its the PANGoddess, as she is “kerry from austin” now.
But still… its just weird.
Apr 21, 2009 at 9:17 am rating: 6
#24
Julie
I choose to believe these photos are of conceptual art installations.
Yes.
Apr 21, 2009 at 9:31 am rating: 3
#25
Isuck
::SCEEN::
Misshe and CANTHZCHZBRGR strolling through the park.
Misshe: I’m really glad we’re frenemies now.
CANTHZCHZBRGR: yeah me too. We’re a really good team on panotes.com.
Misshe: We’re basically the same person, and it’s great that everyone likes us.
CANTHZCHZBRGR: Earlier today I really opened some peoples eyes on the internet when I told them about fascism and Obama.
Misshe: Sweet. I was really funny on the internet today when I made jokes that reference old tv shows.
CANTHZCHZBRGR: Yeah we’ve been around so long we’re funny and cool by association.
::Misshe’s hightened sense of food alerts her to an entire baggeutte laying on the ground.::
Misshe: Oh I’m getting hungry, that box of doughnuts I had earlier didn’t really do the trick.
CANTHZCHZBRGR: OMG! someone wasted an entire loaf of pita bread!
Misshe drools: It’s not really wasted…
CANTHZCHZBRGR: Hey we could leave a message to the bad people of the world, like we do on the internet!
Misshe frowns: (to herself) or I could eat it…
CANTHZCHZBRGR: I’m going show those food wasters. I’m going to write, “STOP WASTING FOOD” then a more important message on the other half, “POLITICS IS LIFE”. Wow I rule! Let’s get out of here!
Misshe: Go ahead I have to tie my shoe.
Misshe, drooling, grabs the bread and sticks half in her mouth. NOM NOM NOM
CANTHZCHZBRGR: Come on! Let’s get back to the internet!
Misshe realizing she’s been away from the internet longer than she’s been away from food, drops the bagguette and waddles after him.
Apr 21, 2009 at 11:14 am rating: 7
#26
claw71
*sometime in the future*
It all started back in 2009. With so many people laid off, Post-it notes were at a premium. Most people weren’t even aware of the fact that they could buy their own at Office Depot or Staples but even if they were, a shortage of cash made it difficult to spring for luxury items.
But we had bread. Food banks regularly ran out of canned goods and boxed foods but there was no shortage of day old bread and flour tortillas. So much so that people quickly put excess bread products to use as stationery and as people let their bills lapse, carbohydrate correspondence quickly replaced text messaging, emails and even traditional mail.
Baguettes were really popular at first because the thick, crunchy crust stood up to a number of writing implements but they were cumbersome. Kaiser rolls never really caught on because they were too soft and as they became stale they simply crumbled into bread crumbs. Hearty whole grain breads concealed all manners of ink and nobody really liked sourdough.
In the end, the flour tortilla reined supreme. It was flat, stackable and the post office would happily deliver them at the standard post card rate. Fresher tortillas were flexible and could even be fed into inkjet printers. Stale tortillas held their shape and took on a parchment quality. Several tortillas could be pasted together to form posters and you could even use ringed binders to hold several together for a larger presentation. With a little spit on the back a tortilla became a much more effective sticky note than 3M’s lousy little Post-it.
Perhaps the best feature of the tortilla was the round, disc-like shape. Instant messages could be sent with a flick of the wrist, often reaching their destination with a sharp thwap as the tortilla connected with the nape of the recipient’s neck.
At first the tortilla actually hurt the economy, sending paper manufacturers, office supply companies and, of course, 3M to the scrap heap of financial ruin. Millions of people lost their jobs. But as the demand for cheap tortillas increased new jobs were created and because everybody simply ate their mail when they were finished with it, society was greener as well. Tortillas saved the world.
So that’s why we don’t eat our tortillas until we’ve written on both sides.
Apr 21, 2009 at 11:58 am rating: 18
#27
GhostWriter
Can nobody else see the image of a Demon Bat in flight on the tortilla?
BURN THE TORTILLA!!!
Apr 21, 2009 at 1:39 pm rating: 5
#28
Geek Goddess
My building is much newer, so I had to lock my bike in the elevator.
Apr 21, 2009 at 3:12 pm rating: 5
#29
SuperMe
now i’m dying for a burrito
Apr 21, 2009 at 5:50 pm rating: 1
#30
RaZZo
Well, besides it being rude to force people to walk past your bike in their shared hallway (you mention yourself how “NYC-sized” it is….
And during a fire in a NYC apartment bldg, a bike locked to a hallway bannister could result in the death of you, your neighbors or the fireman trying to save your inconsiderate ass….
SO YEAH. CREATING A POTENETIALLY DEADLY FIRE HAZARD IS AN “apparent NO-NO”…
Apr 21, 2009 at 8:40 pm rating: 1
#31
Tarn
Looks like a chapati to me.
mmmmmm…… curry….
There are three bikes on the top landing of my apartment block, kept there by tenants (renters not owners).
They aren’t a tripping or fire-escape hazard, because they are out of the way of the doors and stairs. But so far, we’ve had two landing windows broken from the inside, and I’m pretty sure it was done by careless bike-carrying. Of course, nobody owned up, so us long-suffering flat owners had to pay for the repairs.
Bloody tenants!
Apr 22, 2009 at 2:05 pm rating: 0
#32
Larry
I think the important thing here is that we just stop arguing.
It’s a tortilla.
Larry
Apr 25, 2009 at 6:56 pm rating: 0
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