There are worse things than having Wan Ming follow me to work. This time I managed to grab a long sleeve RANTWICK shirt of my wife's thinking it was a t-shirt of my own. No undershirt for me today. I prefer to wear an undershirt, so that is a minor annoyance.
Next, I discovered a pair of girl's underpants on my office floor. They had a pretty little bow on the waist and everything. Must have fallen off the shirt when I pulled it out of the pannier. Great. Thank you, static cling... what if I hadn't seen them? What if the next visitor to my office had found them instead? Gah!
At least I successfully brought a pair of my own undies this time. Someday I will leave the house in an organized, unhurried fashion. Someday.
OK, here goes... pictured below is the back of my office door with my cycling clothes hanging on it.I wear the shorts underneath the pants. On days when it is below freezing, I wear them under my heavier, cold weather pants:
One day several months ago, my winter cycling pants were swallowed by a renegade laundry mound at home. I couldn't find them and was running late for work. They are the only cycling pants I own. It was way too cold for just shorts. In desperation, I put on the only thing I could find:
Now, I can hear you saying, "Rantwick, what the hell is wrong with you? What's wrong with a regular pair of pants?" You are absolutely right in that I could have worn normal pants. I have come to really dislike wearing normal clothes on the bike, so much so that wearing normal pants didn't even occur to me at the time. As it turns out, that was a good thing. Sort of.
On days that it is just above freezing, my heavier pants are too hot. I don't own any regular, warm weather cycling tights. These long undies keep my legs just warm enough, while breathing really well. If it is cold enough to wear them it is also cold enough to wear my jacket, and my jacket covers both the waistband and the "fly", so nobody knows (until now). They fit just like any pair of stretchy athletic tights. So, call me a freak (and I know you will), I have continued to wear them when the temperature is between 0 and 10 C or so. Anything above that and I break out the brightie whities (legs with cycling shorts, I mean. I'm not that freaky just yet).
Sharing this kind of embarrassing information is a bizarre character trait of mine. It is not limited to this blog stuff either. If I have something I'm ashamed of or something I fear will make me look bad or invite teasing or criticism from others, I end up telling people all about it. I think it is a defense mechanism. It is much easier to poke fun at something another person has attempted to keep secret as opposed to something they just up and told you. It kind of takes the fun out of it. This is cool with Mrs. Rantwick, because although it means that I frequently embarrass her by association, it also means I am incapable of keeping secrets from her. If I decide to keep something secret from her, it is a sure thing that making that very decision will have me telling her about it within 24 hours.
So anyway, I was riding to work in my underpants this morning and found myself behind a car that was failing to get going when presented with an advanced green. So I honked. I have no horn or bell on my bike. I prefer to use my voice when I need attention and it works well when you're willing to really speak up or even yell. I've never honked before though, and it turns out that I am more Canadian than I ever guessed...
So there you have it for this Monday. I wish I could promise something normal or interesting for next time, but I honestly don't know what's gonna come next.
Helpless in the face of my own freakishness, I remain:
I carry the clothes I plan to wear on any given work day with me in my awesome panniers. I leave shoes and several pairs of pants at work, but I carry undies, socks and shirt with me each day. The panniers are just big enough to bring all the pants and my towel and stuff home on Fridays for a wash. It is a system that is working really well for me. Most of the time.
Because every morning is a mad rush, I usually grab these items from piles of recently folded and sorted but not yet put away laundry. This level of disorganization can result in my arriving at work with my son's clothing instead of my own. One day last week I unpacked my things to get changed and found that the pair of socks that looked OK rolled up actually belonged to my 8 year old son. The sock below has been pre-stretched by my putting it on before having the idea for this post. I then removed it and took this picture with my cycling shoe, to give you an idea of its size relative to my foot:
They were quite big for little guy socks, and pretty stretchy, so rather than wear the white sport socks I cycled in with black work shoes, I just stuffed my feet into them anyway. This resulted in somewhat comical ankle socks:
I still think this is better than the dreaded white socks with black shoes look (if you wear white socks with everything, my apologies; keep your own style goin' there, friend). Also please note that I wear long pants at work, so I wasn't laying any of that skin action on my co-workers. This was not the first time I had accidentally brought kid stuff instead of my stuff. When underpants are just lying in an unfolded pile (folding undies is madness, in my opinion), a pair of boy's jockeys look an awful lot like a pair of men's jockeys. Since I did a "scale comparison" with the sock, here's one with underpants!
I chose a pair of cycling shorts because believe it or not, I draw the line at posting pictures of my undies; although it would seem posting pictures of my son's jockeys doesn't bother me at all. It kind of makes sense; little boy undies can be seen as "cute"... something quite impossible for grown man underpants, I'm sure you'll agree.
Some of you may already know something about the size of my butt, so you'll understand when I say that there was no way I could pull anything like the preceding sock trick with these little suckers. Have you ever gone commando at work? I have. I didn't like it, not one little bit.
I will try to write about something more normal and less disturbingly personal next time. Please come back. I'll be normal, I promise!
R A N T W I C K 
