I didn't deserve that
8 March 2026 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI was sick with myself because I managed to lose one of my brand *new* cycling gloves in the stupidest way possible; it was raining, I needed to take my gloves off to get to my wallet, and I quite consciously thought about putting them away in the 'proper place' in my side pocket of my bike bag, and took a deliberate decision not to, because they were wet and/or the bag was wet, I forget which, and it was only going to be for a moment or two while I got out the money...
So I stuffed my gloves back into my pockets temporarily, this time on top of the knitted mittens and the large handkerchief that were in there already. And then there was a problem with the payment, and I had to go off and walk around for twenty minutes or so and come back later -- and since I was wearing my waterproof cycle cape, I couldn't see my gloves underneath, and what with all the other business had completely forgotten about them. It wasn't until I'd cycled all the way home and was stripping off all my wet clothing that I suddenly saw one bright yellow glove sticking precariously out of my jacket pocket and realised, with a sinking feeling, what had happened. The other one was nowhere to be found.
So I put my wet waterproofs back on and went all the way back, with very little hope, to retrace every inch of my route. By this time it was yet again dark and raining, and the rush-hour to boot, meaning that the carriageway was full of cars (and the glove that had been lost was the one in my off-side pocket and therefore nearest the centre of the road). The only thing in my favour was that this time the gloves were at least only black on one side, so even if it had fallen palm-side-up there would be a rim of yellow visible... but I didn't have much hope. On the one occasion when I did succeed in finding a lost cycling glove, it had been lying in the gutter within a few yards of my own door (after I had searched the entire rest of the route in both directions), so I thought the odds were greatest that I had lost it somewhere close to the spot where I had initially thrust them into my pockets.
But it was nowhere to be seen. I searched the entire covered market around which I'd wandered, and every yard of street that I could remember walking along in the course of those twenty minutes, and found nothing. I was just about to give up and retrace my homeward journey through the rush-hour traffic and roadworks while attempting to scan the tarmac on either side one last time (and without any hope to speak of), when in the course of one last return visit I cut through a part of the market I didn't think I'd been to before, and suddenly saw a fluorescent yellow object sitting on the corner of a counter in amongst all the vapes and cigarette lighters. I had of course been searching the *floor*, but someone must have picked it up -- and apparently not the stallholder, who didn't seem to know anything about it, though I was expecting to have to prove my ownership of the item by showing the matching glove!
My assessment had been quite correct, in that this corner was only about ten yards from where I'd initially thrust the gloves into my pockets; it had obviously fallen out almost immediately. (Frankly, it was amazing that the other one didn't; but then it was also odd that I managed to cycle all the way home without noticing that I hadn't put my gloves back on, given that my naked hand felt very cold and exposed on the return search journey....) I'm fairly sure that I hadn't in fact been down that particular back alley, but I had definitely been past the corner stall in the other direction, which is when I must have dropped the glove. It was just incredibly lucky that I happened to be looking up and forward due to coming out of the dark passage, instead of scanning the tiles at my feet; I had already walked past that stall at least twice during my search and was on my way to the exit at the time.
As a result, an errand that should have taken an hour ended up taking three (which was why I didn't start my piquant beef until far too late, and I got extremely wet and found that the seams of my shoes had stained through to my socks, the stitching not being 100% waterproof and the polish/leather dye not 100% colourfast. But I was just extraordinarily relieved to get the glove back against the odds -- not only are they very expensive to replace, like all items of technical clothing, but this pair had been a present specifically given to me as a replacement for the ones I'd successively lost to my own carelessness in the face of a known problem. It would have been unbelievably ungrateful for me to do exactly the same thing *again*, when I was actually aware at the time that what I was doing was risky (and chose to do it anyway with predictable results...)
Memo to self: *always* put the gloves back in their appointed place, even if it's only intended to be for a moment or two!
(On the other hand, my bike lights behaved perfectly, as they have done on the other shortish journeys I've made since December -- and the one long one. So I still don't know what is/was going on there.)
So I stuffed my gloves back into my pockets temporarily, this time on top of the knitted mittens and the large handkerchief that were in there already. And then there was a problem with the payment, and I had to go off and walk around for twenty minutes or so and come back later -- and since I was wearing my waterproof cycle cape, I couldn't see my gloves underneath, and what with all the other business had completely forgotten about them. It wasn't until I'd cycled all the way home and was stripping off all my wet clothing that I suddenly saw one bright yellow glove sticking precariously out of my jacket pocket and realised, with a sinking feeling, what had happened. The other one was nowhere to be found.
So I put my wet waterproofs back on and went all the way back, with very little hope, to retrace every inch of my route. By this time it was yet again dark and raining, and the rush-hour to boot, meaning that the carriageway was full of cars (and the glove that had been lost was the one in my off-side pocket and therefore nearest the centre of the road). The only thing in my favour was that this time the gloves were at least only black on one side, so even if it had fallen palm-side-up there would be a rim of yellow visible... but I didn't have much hope. On the one occasion when I did succeed in finding a lost cycling glove, it had been lying in the gutter within a few yards of my own door (after I had searched the entire rest of the route in both directions), so I thought the odds were greatest that I had lost it somewhere close to the spot where I had initially thrust them into my pockets.
But it was nowhere to be seen. I searched the entire covered market around which I'd wandered, and every yard of street that I could remember walking along in the course of those twenty minutes, and found nothing. I was just about to give up and retrace my homeward journey through the rush-hour traffic and roadworks while attempting to scan the tarmac on either side one last time (and without any hope to speak of), when in the course of one last return visit I cut through a part of the market I didn't think I'd been to before, and suddenly saw a fluorescent yellow object sitting on the corner of a counter in amongst all the vapes and cigarette lighters. I had of course been searching the *floor*, but someone must have picked it up -- and apparently not the stallholder, who didn't seem to know anything about it, though I was expecting to have to prove my ownership of the item by showing the matching glove!
My assessment had been quite correct, in that this corner was only about ten yards from where I'd initially thrust the gloves into my pockets; it had obviously fallen out almost immediately. (Frankly, it was amazing that the other one didn't; but then it was also odd that I managed to cycle all the way home without noticing that I hadn't put my gloves back on, given that my naked hand felt very cold and exposed on the return search journey....) I'm fairly sure that I hadn't in fact been down that particular back alley, but I had definitely been past the corner stall in the other direction, which is when I must have dropped the glove. It was just incredibly lucky that I happened to be looking up and forward due to coming out of the dark passage, instead of scanning the tiles at my feet; I had already walked past that stall at least twice during my search and was on my way to the exit at the time.
As a result, an errand that should have taken an hour ended up taking three (which was why I didn't start my piquant beef until far too late, and I got extremely wet and found that the seams of my shoes had stained through to my socks, the stitching not being 100% waterproof and the polish/leather dye not 100% colourfast. But I was just extraordinarily relieved to get the glove back against the odds -- not only are they very expensive to replace, like all items of technical clothing, but this pair had been a present specifically given to me as a replacement for the ones I'd successively lost to my own carelessness in the face of a known problem. It would have been unbelievably ungrateful for me to do exactly the same thing *again*, when I was actually aware at the time that what I was doing was risky (and chose to do it anyway with predictable results...)
Memo to self: *always* put the gloves back in their appointed place, even if it's only intended to be for a moment or two!
(On the other hand, my bike lights behaved perfectly, as they have done on the other shortish journeys I've made since December -- and the one long one. So I still don't know what is/was going on there.)