Zippy

Ooops!

A couple of days ago misfortune struck, and one of the zipper tags parted company from the bag.

It wasn't a tragedy - for such words should be reserved for major disasters, not consequences of natural wear and tear. The tag came off because the stitching preventing the tag from escaping, failed.

I had an unsuccessful attempt at putting the tag back, but as you can see it would only have been useful if you were actually inside the bag...!
I am not terribly practical.


Needless to say, as I did not take the time to repair the stitching, the tag soon came off again.

Now a zip tag may not seem to be a very important item, but without it, I could not close the receptacle completely, in case the other tag also fell off. Walking around with an unsecured bag was not a good idea, so I suggested to DH that it might be possible to repair the bag by gluing the section where the stitching had failed.
He gave me a look - an 'are you really out of your tree' kind of look, and announced that sewing was the only possible procedure that would produce an effective repair.  Then he sighed, and went and got a curved needle.  Then came the dreaded words
"You will have to empty the bag!"
The part of me that doesn't like emptying bags couldn't see why this was required, as there was room to fit his hand inside the mysterious depths, What more could he want?
Realising that repairs were on hold until the bag was empty, I went and got another bag, and emptied my bag into it.
DH stared in amazement
as parts of pens,
packs of tissues,
partly used strips of paracetamol,
receipts,
leaflets,
scraps of paper,
several sachets of sugar,
two power banks,
a lead,
keys,
the odd coin or two,
a chunky blue wax crayon,
a black sharpie - perfect for making last-minute signs for Open the Book,
a pair of scissors with green handles - Messy Church
a candle,
sweet wrappers
and other junk cascaded sullenly out of my beloved blue bag and into the see-through plastic bag.
"Good heavens! What HAVE you got in there!?"
"It IS a bag!" I replied - stating the blindingly obvious, just in case it wasn't.

"Choose a thread!" DH instructed with authority, as he got into 'repair mode'.
Fearful of what selection he might make I hurriedly selected a suitable smokey grey thread.
Bemused by the speed of my selection he regarded the proffered spool of thread dubiously, wanting to dispute my choice, but resisting the urge - knowing too well that a colour blind person questioning a choice of colour, has lost the argument before it has begun.

A few quick stitches and the bag was as good as new, with the tags facing the correct way.
Using the parts of pens I managed to successfully rebuild three biros, two of which work. The receipts will be shredded, the bits of paper recycled, and rubbish disposed of. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to know what we did on the Reader Weekend in 2017 I have a copy of the programme...

Money! Money! Money!

I am also £5.11 richer.
Actually, my wealth is the same,
I just know where to find it!