it all started with a pair of dangerous shoes.
it was last summer, and i was living in a pair of black sandals with chunky heels. they were comfortable and matched most everything. the only problem was that the leather strap had stretched and the heel didn't necessarily stay under my foot when i walked, particularly if i was on a rough surface. this was a particular issue on the towpath along the river, where i tripped a few times and threatened to fall while hurrying to the gym. since i was four or five months pregnant at the time, this made richard --and even me-- really nervous.
so while i looked for some safer shoes, and struggled along with the dangerous sandals, i started watching my feet, very carefully. i learned every pothole and mud puddle on the towpath, and at the same time, i started noticing just how many red rubber bands were scattered along the half-mile route amongst the other rubbish.
once i noticed the rubber bands along that towpath, i started seeing them everywhere. in london, on oxford street. outside sarah and karl's house in ealing. in egham. and most noticeably, underneath our mailbox, which is just inside our gate on the river side of our house. in fact, one day, i noticed that the postman, who delivers our mail on a bike along the towpath, bundled our mail in these rubber bands, and i saw him drop one on the ground while trying to slip it into his mail bag.
it was around this time that my expanding pregnant belly starting cutting off my oxygen supply when i leaned over, so rather than pick up all these discarded banks from the royal mail, i pointed them out to richard, and i vowed that starting in 2006, once my waistline was back, i would start collecting them. so my new year's resolution is to gather them together into the world's largest rubber band ball, and once i have a year's worth, send them straight back where they came from, in the post.
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