I was cycling home after work one Friday evening. The office had lots of surplus milk, so I was given two pints to take home. I’d also just bought a bottle of dark soya sauce earlier that day, so I put them in a plastic bag, and strapped them to the rear rack.
It started to drizzle.
Came to a halt at a set of traffic lights. Heard glass shattering behind me. Thought, “Oh dear, some driver’s run into the back of someone’s car.”
For some reason, I decided to turn round and look. What I saw, in the glare of the headlights of the car behind me, was my plastic bag sitting on the road, with a trail of white liquid and a trail of black liquid oozing out of it, running on the road.
No time to do anything as the lights were about to change to green, so I just picked up the bag and re-strapped it onto the rear rack. Cycled off when the lights turned green.
Came to another halt at the next set of lights. Another shattering of glass behind me. Yes, that plastic bag had come off again.
By now, the rain had become a heavy drizzle.
Grabbed the bag, re-strapped it a second time, and cycled off, with a trail of white liquid and a trail of black liquid dripping off the rear rack.
At the next set of lights, the chain came off. The heavy drizzle had now turned into a steady downpour. I just wanted to sit down on the pavement and cry.
I finally arrived home, drenched from head to toe, with a plastic bag with lots of holes and three broken bottles inside, by now sans contents, and a pair of hands all black and greasy from putting the chain back on — in the pouring rain.
(London, 1983)
What an adventure. And with you cycling in the rain together with car traffic on the road it could have been a lot worse… losing milk and soya and getting wet was not the worst that could’ve happened.
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