The Basket Case

As I wound the wire attachments around my bicycle handle, I wondered how sturdy this contraption would be. Instead of going for the $40 metal crate that would connect sturdily with screws, my impulse, my financial status, and my partiality for cuteness, lead me directly to the $22 wicker basket.

I later found out it worked well; it withstood the weight of the finest $8.99 Chilean wine bottle and the emotional stress of waiting outside the liquor store alone and lockless. A few times the strength of the basket was tested, and it faulted by brimming my spinning tires; fortunately it was nothing too loud nor too damaging and the basket soon picked up its weight again.

I know when I got home I should have unwound its tired handles and protected it from the morning dew and forecasted downpour, but instead, for the past week, I have neglected this new wicker basket and the purple companion it clings to each day.

I am sure I will need a new basket one day if I keep treating it like this. But it seems too new to worry about just yet.

You could say I am "putting all my eggs in one basket," which I've recently come to learn, is never a smart decision. But every now and then a basket comes along so captivating, so intriguing, and so lovely that you forget every warning you've ever heard. And before you can even protect them, your eggs have leaped from their refrigerated cardboard cartons and made themselves cozy in this facade of woven wicker.

Soon enough the basket un-weaves itself and your eggs are left oozing and broken by the road.

After losing a few eggs a long the way and learning the worthlessness of becoming a basket case (too many puns too little time) over my losses, I am committed to stopping this problem at the source. Although the idiom implies to use many baskets rather than one, I think it makes more sense to embrace the unpredictableness of using baskets in the first place. No we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket, but should we really be putting our eggs in a million different ones ? (I assure you this is not referring to matters of reproduction!) Let's be honest, back-up baskets can be just as disappointing.

But at least there's an option, some might warn.

But options doesn't necessarily equate safety or happiness.

I don't know the answer, but for now I will start to take care of the basket I have the best way I can. And if it fails me one day then so be it.

Follow my blog with bloglovin