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So it’s Monday morning.

I walked into the office, started up my computer and the first three applications I opened promptly crashed.

Is this an indicator of the week to come?

There’s a new woman at my office who I think is crazy. She’s the kind of person who enjoys suffering… hours and hours on end of pounding pain.

No, no, none of that kinky stuff. I’m talking about running.

She’s a marathon runner.

Like me, she turns her past-time into part of her routine – the commute. Her commute is around the 10km mark, including a couple of not insignificant hills which get my HR up when I’m mechanically assisted on a bike. With the hot weather that we’ve recently experienced, she will no doubt have some kind of hydration strategy like I do.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have many routes to go to the facilities. Thankfully, the mens room is tucked away around a corner, with two possible approaches. It’s also near one of the meeting rooms, so walking in that direction holding a notebook also proves to be a handy decoy. For the most part, this allows me to mix things up nicely and I don’t think the guys who sit near there notice.

One route from the gents to my desk takes me past the door to the ladies. As I walked past yesterday, Ms Marathon Runner (MMR) walked out. Now guys don’t generally chat in the mens and for me this extends to a good 10 to 20 seconds after walking out. Maybe it’s got something to do with the “I know what you just did and don’t want to think about it” factor. As such, I gave MMR a small and a very quiet “Hi”.

The day continues.

Not long after, I’m headed in the same direction again. En route, I cross paths with MMR, who is also headed in the same direction and I flash another smile and “Hi”.

And it happens again later in the day.

By this third time the smile has progressed into a small giggle as we both realise what’s happened. Hopefully no one noticed because I suppose it could be interpreted badly that the two of us repeatedly walk away from the facilities giggling.

Now you’d think that out of embarrassment, one of us would have tried to alter their schedule such that we wouldn’t cross paths any more, but that would require much pain and suffering, beyond that of a 42km jog or a 200km ride.

So we continued on with our day-to-day, with our timing sychronised. A fourth time.

And quite amusingly, a fifth time, after which I went home.

Another warm day today. Hope it doesn’t happen again.

It turns out that the lady who restocks our coffee/tea/milk supplies at work has gone on leave over Christmas and that the folks who organise this stuff for the building have not arranged for a replacement.

Personally, I don’t use this facility much, since I’m a bit of a tea snob and bring my own fancy loose leaf tea.

But for the sake of others, I must ask – how does that work?

The rest of the office continues to function, but they decide to shut up shop. How will the corporate world function without caffeine? There’s going to be hell when certain individuals discover that they are without their morning brew. I suppose I should just give up on having any meaningful meetings this week, since people will be falling asleep for lack of artificial stimulants.

Another day, another vendor open day.

One reason for the average, non-decision making nobody like me to attend these things is to pick up freebies. I’ve managed to snare some very decent stuff at these things before. Last year I picked up a battery powered radio, which has served very faithfully as my garage radio.

This year, I managed to pick up a diary and a handy water flask.

I also picked up this not-very-useful doodad, shown next to it is my faithful Silva hiking compass.

Buy our products! We don’t know which direction we’re going!

No doubt you know someone who is taking part in Movember. Now this is one charitable event that I will never be able to take part in.

Not because I don’t care.

It’s because I just can’t grow a mo’. Not to say that I don’t have facial hair, but it just has this issue of getting any longer than a couple of millimetres.

Of course, this has benefits for me. I do save a lot of money on razors. It also means that I can streamline my morning on days when I ride to work, by not having to shave at the office, then doing it in the evening when I get home. Certain days on the weekend I also don’t do it because I can’t be bothered… such as yesterday.

I thought all was well this morning, until a colleague commented “Hey man, is that your Movember effort? That’s pretty poor for middle of the month”.

Bah!

So today started out like any other Tuesday.

Tuesdays are my usual day off the bike. After a hard weekend of riding, followed usually by a nice and easy Monday commute, I take Tuesdays off. It’s also convenient because with the Wednesday race, it’s handy to give the legs a small rest.

A train ride, a trip to Queen Vic Market to stock up on fruit, a tram ride to the office. All was fairly normal.

At my desk, I put down two loaded shopping bags of fruit, then put my Crumpler down.

Oh, I’ve dropped an apple. Let me squat down to pick it up.

*RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP*

Uh oh.

I reach around to feel the seat of my pants. Uhhh that’s bad. Very bad. It’s not just a small split. The grand canyon has opened up down there. It’s a good 20cm long split, straight down the seam in the middle.

Now I generally have issues finding dress pants. I believe that it’s caused by the fact that cycling develops my quads and glutes, but also ensures that I have a fairly trim waistline. This means that most flat fronted dress pants are either falling down or so tight that I can’t sit down. Clearly today, I discovered the third thing that happens with pants…

A quick check… yep. Black undies. That’s handy and a bit more discreet.

A look around the office reveals that I’m one of the few people around. Thank goodness. That should make it much easier to sneak down to my locker in the basement to get my trousers that I leave at the office for the commute.

I walk out of the office, taking extra care to walk with my legs very together, holding my hands behind my back, grasping a jacket and trying to look very casual.

Into the lift. *phew* It’s empty. A quick survey in the mirror shows that the tear is quite hard to see if I walk with my legs together. None the less, I continue with the jacket charade.

Out of the lift and around the corner to the other lifts which will take me to my locker. These lifts are in the foyer, which is getting quite busy with the morning influx. “Morning Pete!” I say to a colleague who’s just arriving. Noooo don’t stop to chat to me.

I must say… standing in a breezy foyer talking to someone about random stuff when there’s a gaping huge hole in the seat of your pants is an interesting experience. Not one I’d like to repeat I should add.

Anyway, stop talking, need to keep moving.

Press the button for the lift. The wait feels like an eternity. Come on! Where’s the lift? *ding* Finally.

Into the lift. Empty again. Out of the lift, across the carpark to my locket.

Dammit! I’ve got a bottom locker. As I squat to unlock my locker I hear another couple of stitches breaking.

Grab my pants and over to the change rooms. A quick look around and thankfully they’re empty.

Woohoo.

Disaster averted.

I’m glad that I had the spare pair in the office.

** Just to clarify, they’re definitely not old and worn out. They’re probably 18 months old and I have a couple of suits and a couple of pairs of pants for each suit.