I have a whole category for “Dumb Things I Have Done.”
That is because doing dumb things comes very naturally to me, and in the course of writing journal (online or otherwise) various recurring themes emerge based upon those things one does regularly. In my case, doing dumb things.
So, today’s dumbness:
1. Chucking a little pot of green body glitter willy-nilly into my backpack. I’ve been some years past my body-glitter buying or wearing stage, but this stuff was a freebie from back in October from a Halloween party. I figured I’d hang on to it and re-distribute it come St. Patrick’s day, when there’s always a big silly parade full of green-clad cyclists. Unfortunately in the gap between Halloween and St. Pat’s is large, and the environment inside my bag is jostly, and green body glitter is viscous. It leaked. Now many things inside the bag are slightly sticky and covered in green sparkles.
2. Re-using an old, plastic peanutbutter jar to transport honey to work. Reduce, reuse, recycle, right? Well, don’t re-use a plastic peanutbutter jar to transport honey to work. Unless you like honey that tastes of stale peanutbutter. Apparently the peanutty oils seep into the plastic and re-assert themselves in the honey. My tea at work has been singularly nasty, but I’m not about to waste the honey, as it’s local, normally delicious, and not exactly cheap. Goddammit!
After the glitter debacle, I had to clean out my bag, because it does not do to be sprinkling green pixie dust all over hell and creation. Especially at work. It’s just not professional. So I cleaned that pit of desolation out, and did a “what’s in my bag” picture. I will post it on Flickr and here later, and narrate the honkin’ heap of crap that I tote around on my back daily.
Also, I want to take a brief moment to state publically, that my bag sucks, I hate it, and I wish I’d never been seduced by the marketing hype to buy a Chrome bag. I’d heard all this shit about how they were designed for cyclists and were meant to be handy to get into and well-balanced, durable, and waterproof. Well, the last two are true, the first two are blatantly false, and in addition, they are incredibly unsuited to those of us who have boobs, even small ones. This darn bag is actually a pain in the ass to sling over your shoulder if it is loaded at all (which mine pretty much always is). When loaded, it will have a tendency to migrate to one side or the other, no matter how tightly you cinch the stabilizer strap, and when you wreck, it will vault over your head, catching on your helmet and nearly taking your ears off with it. If you happen to be among the boob-having population you can experience the delightful adventure of having one breast jacked up and the other squashed down as the main strap passes across your chest. Really in most areas of comfort, convenience, and functionality, this bag fails dramatically. The only real things it has going for it are durability and water resistance. I have crashed with it on, and slung it around unceremoniously, and it’s little worse for the abuse, and I’ve ridden home in some godawful downpours and found the contents safe and dry inside when I got home.
It’s bacause of the redeeming quality of water-resistance that I am planning to remodel this bag soon. I will carefully hand-sew two over the shoulder straps to the cordura outer layer so that it can be worn backpack style, with the flap running horizontally, in a similar fashion to the schoolbags that Japanese children carry. This will undoubtedly be more stable and comfortable, and this will almost certainly make me stop hating my bag.