The one where the evening descended into comedy
On Monday lunchtimeI'm travelling to the other end of the country with workheaded towards a hotel on the outskirts of a northern city to live in a hotel for a few days. Therefore when I left the office on Friday, I threw the laptop into my backpack, and then called home.to see if I needed to pick anything up for dinner.“The kids are asking for Dominos”“That's really expensive though, isn't it”“Up to you.”“I'll stop at the supermarket”.
And so it was that I stepped from the office into the driving rain, and set off towards home on the mountain bike. I made it about half a mile before an alarm went off somewhere in the depths of my head, and told me “you don't have your keysyou won't be able to lock your bike up at the supermarket”.
I returned to the office, which thankfully hadn't been locked yet. No keys. I called home. No keys in their usual place there either. I would have to go home, and then go back out again. Damn. Back on the bike, back out in the rain.
This time I made it about quarter of a mile before another alarm went off somewhere in my head. Laptop charger. I had left the power supply for my laptop under the desk in the office. I skidded to a halt in the middle of the road, turned around, and returned once more to the office.
While getting on the bike for the third time, I looked downmy legs were already peppered with dirt from puddlesthe supposedly waterproof reflective jacket had already given up any pretence of being waterproof, and was starting to stick to the layers beneath it.
Twenty minutes later, after a strangely quiet journey home (usually rain turns the suburban streets into a recreation of “Whacky Races”), I walked in the door, found my keys within 30 seconds, turned around, and walked straight back out into the rain to go and buy food for dinner.
Three quarters of an hour later I arrived back at the front door of our house, and of course had forgotten to put the keys in my pocket, so stood like a slightly drowned rat, waiting to be let back in. After handing the pizzas over, I started stripping off and got straight in the shower.
Fun times. Not.