Disappointment Sandwich

Today I suffered the ignominy of eating the above morsel. It is not a physical thing, and you do not chomp down upon its components of course, but you can nonetheless feel it in your mouth and in your stomach. The first bite of disappointment came as I discovered my planned bike ride would involve the extraction of said bicycle from a pile of trash in the garage, and repairing a puncture. After much rearrangement and searching, I retrieved the cycle and located the necessary tools to complete the task.

The abiding feature of a disappointment sandwich is the delicious, tasty and uplifting middle. The middle today took the form of the planned, if now curtailed and adapted bike ride, to enjoy the warming spring sunshine and the rushing wind one feels when bombing it. By its very nature, this wonderful treat in the middle was short lived, fleeting, and wholly unsatisfying. This is because it is a disappointment sandwich, and any pleasure it gives will be snatched away, crushed and replaced with overwhelming disappointment.

And so it came to pass. Alas! A puncture, just before halfway into my planned linear route. Therefore, the worst possible outcome. I did not reach my destination, and yet I was still the furthest possible distance away from my start point. There was only one option for a cycle propelled citizen such as myself. Having only my own power at my disposal, I was required to lug the now useless and burdensome two-wheeler the full distance home. The roughness of the trail resulted in the separation of the tyre from the rim, meaning the task asked more effort from me than would have been expected from the entire planned route on the cycle. The disappointment was compounded in the final stages of my return by my need to make use of the rim to wheel the stricken thing back. Countless passers-by will have been separately confused, sad, happy, unmoved and pitiful at my plight. Such is the nature of the disappointment sandwich.

NOTES: Biological weathering in action