(s)he was merely stupid

Perhaps the album title was more apt than initially realised - here are four events in my life, all occurring before 12pm in the last two days.

The bike: I decided to 'do the right thing' and ride my bike to work on Monday - I'd ridden once with a friend, and then again last Friday and decided it was time to make a proper go of it. This was a pretty big deal for me - I realised my main issue with riding to/from work was not the physical exertion, not the time it takes, not the fact I have to shower at work - it's that I don't like people looking at me. Granted, I don't know for sure that they're looking at me panting and puffing and sweating with my mouth open, but they totally could be. With this in mind, what could be the worst thing to happen? How about my chain getting stuck in the big cog thing right next to the busiest road, leaving me sitting on the ground next to a laid down bike, calling The Hun to please come rescue whilst fobbing off people offering assistance. After about 10 minutes sitting time, a lady mechanic from the bike shop near my work stopped, yanked out the knot, and told me to bring it in for a service; then The Hun arrived, told me he wouldn't take me home (with what was meant to be an inspiring "Don't give up" but was greeted with only the stinkeye) and I arrived at work more than half an hour than I planned (including riding time!).

The shoes: After swearing my way through the work shower (SO! MUCH! STUFF! SO! LITTLE! ROOM! SUCH SH!TTY! WATER! PRESSURE!) I got to my desk, announced I'd arrived and headed across the road to pick up a redeye to calm myself down. On the way back from the shop to the office, the toe-bit on my shoe snapped, meaning I crossed the road, entered the foyer, passed through the atrium and stomped back to my desk with one bare foot. 'Luckily' I still had a pair of shoes under my desk that I had previousy abandoned for giving me too many blisters, so I didn't have to wear runners all day.

The car: Seeing as the bike was in for a service, I decided to drive in early today to make up some flex time. I'd been at my desk about half an hour and was halfway through answering a query for my boss when the martial arts phone rang - there was a man asking if someone from our martial arts school drove a black Swift. It seems that some idiot (me) had dropped their car keys in the very public carpark - one click of the car alarm key identified my car for him, ready for the stealing. As he wrote his mobile number and "You dropped your keys" on a piece of cardboard for my windscreen, he noticed the martial arts websites plastered all over my car (my messiness has an advantage!), took it down, went to work, looked up the website and found the Canberra contact and gave me a call. How. lucky. is that.

The other shoes: Lunch time called and, car keys intact, I headed across the road for my rice paper rolls (Gods gift to vegan lunchies!) in my blister causing shoes. It was then I realised that not only did these shoes blister all ten of my toes simultaneously (amazing!), but they have a thin sole - I performed a spectacular ankle-rolling-tripping-running-slide with swearing at a minimum and my iPod volume at a near maximum.

Whilst I have viewed these past two days as pretty fricking close to terrible, mumsy has instead proclaimed that bad luck comes only in threes (she doesn't know about the stumble) and that these near misses mean that someone is looking out for me.

Here's hoping it doesn't happen again - I'm off to Queensland on Thursday (more on that tomorrow!).