everything has a failure rate

I was happily riding in to work this morning on my motorcycle. Periodically while riding, a spark of terror that I’ve forgotten to buckle my backpack to the bike’s frame hits me. So frequently, in fact, that I’ve grown used to reaching behind me to feel for the backpack in a spare second when I don’t need to clutch.

Today was different:

I reached for the backpack but felt nothing.

I quickly signaled to pull over to the side and looked over my shoulder:

For the uninitiated, it’s supposed to look like this:

I sped back home on the route I’d taken, mentally taking inventory of all the things in my backpack. My medications, my nice headphones, my work laptop. All the things on the laptop. Thoughts raced through my mind: If I can’t find the backpack, who do I need to get in touch with at work to invalidate any credentials stored on it? (I wasn’t that worried about this – the laptops at Square are pretty locked down and we don’t really store anything very secret on them – but working here for nearly 4 years has given me some good operational security practices!) I wonder when the last backup completed and how much (if anything) I’ll lose if it’s gone. I try to decide whether I need to get in touch with Square’s Trust & Security or IT team first, then realize that I’m not even sure I have either phone number stored in my phone.

I remember that my laptop’s lock screen has my phone number and email. I hold out hope that my phone will ring or that a morning runner or neighbor will have found it and be waiting at the main entrance of my apartment building. All the while, I’m scanning the road for the backpack.

One of my primary maxims is

Everything has a failure rate.

I realize that this applies even to the process of securing the buckles of the backpack. I kick myself, because I have adopted the shisa kanko practice of pointing to the closed garage door and each buckle before I get on the bike – but I neglected to do so this particular morning because I had so consciously closed the garage door.

With every turn in the route I become a bit more despondent and resigned. How long is it going to take to set everything up on the laptop again? It’s early – before 7 in the morning – how soon can I get a replacement?

As I approach my apartment, I hold out hope that the backpack is hiding behind the last car – perhaps it bumped off as my rear tire rolled over the curb. When that hypothesis is dreadfully disproven, a flash of hope washes over me that perhaps a neighbor recognized my name and put it inside the building before hurrying about their day. But no. There’s no backpack I can see in the hallway through the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the glass door.

Fully crestfallen and expecting no relief, I hold out for the last hope – maybe it fell off when I wheeled the bike out of the garage. It’s a long shot, but it’s either there or gone. I put the bike in neutral, kick the side-stand down, and jump off the bike. As I walk around to open the garage door, I notice something about the bike doesn’t look quite right. And there it is: