unrequested empathies

When I popped into the changing room prior to popping outside to buy food at lunchtime I was so momentarily distracted by checking to see if the hood of my hoody was yet dry then appalled and dismayed at the state of the lower rear of my coat that I completely forgot to change into my trainers from my work shoes. Had my hood been dry I'd have just put that on instead and remembered to change shoes and then would never have inadvertently discovered the extent to which people shod inappropriately for the weather conditions move so incredibly slowly in order to not end up sitting in a slushy puddle at the side of the road underneath a bus due to having almost no traction whatsoever on anything other than a perfectly level, gritted and frozen-water-free surface. In the past I've noticed the difference between a pair of nice grippy Vibram/Merrell soles and the less effective Contagrip rubber found on inferior trainers, usually when walking along a highly-sloped surface such as the south-east corner of the West Port/Lady Lawson St junction in the rain or ice. Usually I can walk almost normally (give or take a bit of weird hip muscle use) but I had to go quite slowly and even take my hands out of my pockets on occasion just to walk the hundred metres or so from work to the shop when wearing my employment-feet. It's a bit like being able to understand how some people find slightly cool weather mortally freezing when under the influence of influenza-type ailments, which last week led me to wear a second upper layer and a pair of socks when moping snottily around the house.

Considering how relatively infrequently this has been worn it's unpleasant how swiftly it's decayed where it comes into contact with the bottom of my rucksack. As I don't frequently inspect the arses of my coats I've no idea how swiftly this damage has progressed, but it's entirely possible it's only occurred this winter, during which so far I've probably already doubled the total number of times the coat has been worn, though that includes the occasions on which I stopped after a couple of miles to remove it when the outside air turned out to be nowhere near cold enough for the coat's alleged breatheability to be noticeable.