My first Lifehacking tip
Wednesday February 15, 2006 - Permanent link to this post -
Oh man, have I had a shit day so far? Miles didn't sleep a wink last night. He's teething, and pissed off so he just kept screaming. Me and Nicki took in turns to get up to him, but it didn't really matter which one of us was out of bed; nobody can sleep through that. You can't help but get annoyed, especially at 5:30am when you've been awake since two.
So consequently, this morning I was shattered. I could have carried books in the bags under my eyes and my posture must have resembled that of neolithic man. I blindly put some clothes into my courier bag, had a bowl of Corn Flakes, kissed the family goodbye and set off to work on my bike.
I arrived at work tired and sweaty, but refreshed. Looking forward to a nice hot shower before settling down to the toil. It was at this point, soaped up under a torrent of water, that I realised I'd forgotten my towel. Bollocks. I've done this a number of times before, but never since I left school. Forgetting your towel for P.E was never a big deal. There'd always be somebody who'd either lend you their damp towel when they'd finished, or failing that you could always dry yourself off on your sports kit. The shower at work is not a communal one, so I was faced with the latter option. I dried off with my slightly sweaty dry-fit cycling top and proceded to get dressed.
So far, I'd had a bad morning. I'd had a sleepless night and been forced to re-enact something from a time of my life I'd have rather left in the gallows of my memory. The thought of Mr Klink, the P.E-cum-Geography teacher strolling up and down the showers in the changing rooms making sure we were all "good and dry" made me cringe a little bit. Then I realised I'd packed a double-cuffed shirt in my bag, and no cufflinks.
Not only was I going to have to spend the day walking around like a zombie, knowing that my cycling top was dripping wet and trying to surpress the memory of the school gym, but I was going to have to do it all with flared sleeves. I'm sure you'll agree that that's a fucking nightmare situation.
And so we come to my lifehack. I realise I've brought you rather a long way round, but here it is. If ever you're stuck with a double-cuffed shirt and no cufflinks, a pair of standard office paperclips will do an adequate, and fairly stylish job of keeping your shirt fastened at the wrists.
Well that was good, wasn't it. I'm sure I'll be called up as a guest author on lifehacker.com any time now.
