I was about to cycle back from work this evening

and it was uncharacteristically dark, looking like it might rain. I left my sunglasses off and headed home. When I came to the bridge over the cycle path I use to get home, I slung the bike on my shoulder and went down the stairs to the path. Almost immediately after getting back on and starting off, I thought "What's that on my foot?" and lo, it was a piece of dog shit. Handily smeared all over the pedal by now.

Arse.

I wiped my shoe on the grass and then looked back at the shitty pedal. Fuck. I took out my hankie and wiped most of the crap off it and set off up the path, cycling one-handed, with the odorous hankie dangled from my spare hand.

Heading back up the path, looking for a bin, I changed up gear. The gear lever made an ominous 'crack' noise and refused to lock in place, leaving me weaving up the path with a shitty hankie in one hand and the gears making the kind of grinding noise that, when I hear someone else's bike making it, makes me roll my eyes in a kind of "Honestly, can't you use the gears?" type way.

And then it started to rain. Just as I was coming up to a little park I knew had a litter bin in it, I copped a bit of airborne grit in my right eye because of my lack of sunglasses. Because of the bloody rain clouds. Shortly after the first bit of grit, I copped another in my left eye. Eyes streaming with the irritations, I wobbled into the park and flung the hankie into the bin. A woman was walking her dog nearby. I glared (as best I could with eyes closed to watering slits) at the bastarding thing as it happily gambolled away, no doubt planning the optimum place for a covert dump.

Devoid of my feculent hankie, I was at least able to hold the gear lever in place so the gears didn't persist in filing themselves away to nothing. Nearing the end of the cycle path, my nose started to run in sympathy with my eyes. I reached for my hankie only to silently scream when I remembered it was in a bin half a mile away, covered in dog crap.

Once I got to the flat, I locked up my broken, shitty bike, took a near-solid beer out of the freezer and watched the Swiss (my team in the flat Euro 2004 sweepstake) get beaten by the English.

<fx: cradles head in hands>