I'm sure you are all familiar with the behaviour of bungees, those elasticated cords without which no pannier set would be complete. Elly calls it String Theory, I tend more towards Chaos, or even better, Chaotic String Theory. Simply provable mathematically, it is the inborn tendency of every bungee to wrap itself almost undisentanglably with a mate as soon as the two come into contact. Be so foolish as to put two or more into a bag and when you next come to extract one, the whole bloody lot emerge at once, happy in their multicoloured maze. I know that my card has been marked by the Brotherhood of Bungees for some time now, ever since I went the more mature way of the Webbing Strap. Evidence of this has occurred on several occasions, when bungees pressed into service as additional security have let go and fucked off to new homes, or on occasion deliberately unhooked when under tension, smiting me rather mightily and quite bloody painfully around the head and body. I was doing a bit of trailerwork just now, and removed a pair of bungees from their habitual positions, stretched around the stern. Hanging them carefully and separately on the front of the trailer, I did my stuff at the blunt end and then collected the debris from the front. As I picked them up, I felt the writhe, the little twist, the wriggle that signified contact had been made and was not about to be put asunder by a mere mortal such as myself. I ignored them in my ginger way and carried them to the garage where they used to live. One short nail only was available for the hanging, rather than two. I felt the Force. Closing my eyes, internalising my chi and simultaneously expanding the centrality of my being, I hooked one over the nail and let the strength of my opponent work against itself. There was no elasticky thud as of bungee hitting concrete, merely a slither and then a click. Peering down my nose in a superior fashion, I saw that my object had been achieved - number one bungee was hanging from the nail, number two dangling disconsolately from the lower end of number one. Have that, you fuckers!
