RUCKSACK MANAGEMENT

I’ve never been into the office on a Monday. Well, not this office anyway. Bleary-eyed from the two trains and one taxi, I stumbled in, and the automatic lights flicked on.

I sometimes wonder what ancient cultures would make of automatic lights. We take them for granted, but for the pre-electric age, this flow of electrons across a low-intensity plasma, noticing you and then turning on by itself, would be nothing short of magic. What scientific wizardry, I wonder, would I be overawed by, if I were here in 300 years’ time?

One thing’s for certain: I still wouldn’t have figured out how to keep a tidy rucksack…

I know this because so far, it seems to have been my life’s effort. Today I reached in, past charging cables and a book I’d forgotten about, and I slowly pulled up a crumpled notebook, with its blank pages mangled and creased.

How do my rucksacks end up stuffed like this? There are always chunks of biscuit, grubby coins and broken pens at the bottom. Even at school my Tricolore ended up covered in smudgy bits of Kit Kat, pencil and lunchbox detritus. I doubt I can ever go to La Rochelle and not be surprised that it doesn’t whiff of banana and tippex.

What I need to do is empty my rucksack every time I get home. Clear it out - regularly tipping it upside down so all the old batteries and USB sticks fall out with the bounty wrappers, crumbs and tissues before it all builds up round the corner of my laptop. By the way, if this suggestion was obvious to you two paragraphs ago, firstly, well done you - let’s hang out, and secondly, it’s likely that you and I are different kinds of people. Which is fine, by the way, as long as you know that, and I know that, and you know that I know that.

I’ve smoothed out my notebook. There’s a water bottle on top of it. Next to it, I’ve noticed someone’s left a “side-splitting” Christmas game entitled “Who Am I & What Am I Doing?”

I don’t know any better questions than those two. Seems today I’m a lazy rucksack owner, and I’m trying to flatten out a notebook.