Monday 8 February 2016

No Good Deed goes Unpunished

Just before I went to bed the other night, the glint of metal caught my eye from at the back of the shed, wet in the rain, catching the moonlight.


It sure as hell wasn't there before!

However, knowing that our sheds up our dark driveway used to act as a breeding ground for rusty old bicycles, I left it for a few days in case it was a new project for my Polish neighbour, or to see if whoever had dumped it would come to reclaim it.

Of course they didn't, and with my usual high sense of public spirit, I rescued the bike and took it down the police station.


The front tire was flat, the rear one holed, and my legs would have to have been cut in half in order to sit on it, so I pushed it rather than rode it to the cop shop, feeling rather stupid as I did so. Having told the woman officer on duty that there was no way in hell I'd ever want it back even if it was unclaimed, I made my way back to the library only to eventually realise that my jawbone fitness band had fallen off my wrist and disappeared somewhere.

I suppose by hoping for a karmic reward from doing a good thing, one is tempting karma to yet again cock its leg all over you. Certainly, when I retreated my steps there was no sign of it, and it hadn't been handed in at Morrisons; I haven't checked in Asda yet.

It was a Christmas present from my parents, who not being terribly tech savvy wouldn't have read the online reviews saying that the clasp on a Jawbone Up2 was very flaky and lots of people were losing them. This is hardly a compensation for 1) feeling guilty for losing it and 2) losing a gadget worth £50 odd for the sake of a bike worth a fiver as scrap by the look of things.

A fitbit next time for me. Or I don't know, maybe a petrol station stopwatch would be better.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 08.02.16

6 comments:

  1. Ooooh - too bad about your jawbone band! I love my fitbit "charge". it tracks my pulse, which I find very useful. The band clasp is like a belt buckle and much better than the clasps on the less expensive fitbit models. I highly recommend it.

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  2. Oh no damn that karma! I'm afraid my jawbone is unlikely to get lost as it is in a drawer at home at the moment.

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  3. Might rather save for a GPS watch. Thanks for commenting on my idiocy!

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  4. There may be a moral here somewhere Si, but I am not sure what it is.

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    1. Indeed....stay on the sofa and eat KFC. Like I did tonight.

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  5. Lovely story Simon. I'm sure your karma will recover!
    The tale reminded of the time I found a car number plate lying the street shortly after I'd read about a bank robbery involving a getaway car with false number plates. I thought the police would be interested. After all, number plates do fall off cars driven at high speed. At least they do in the movies. There's always a clue for Columbo. "What do we want that for?" "I thought it might be um . . ." "Take it the Lost Property People" "Where are they?" and so on. When I went outside there was a homeless man nearby selling Augustine. I said "Can you get rid of this for me. Take it to the Lost Property people?" "Yeah sure" "Here's a couple of Euros for your trouble." That was that.

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