Sinking feelings come in stages. There’s scrambling for gig tickets only to see they’ve sold out when you get to the front of the virtual queue. Landing the middle seat of a long-haul flight. An undesirable triumph in a national election. And stepping into an expectedly deep puddle. In brand new boots.
Of all those examples, the puddle may be on the lesser end of the day-ruining scale, but it’s no less unfortunate. Done at the start of the day, and you’ve no choice but to squelch around in soggy socks (who goes out with spares?) and hope you don’t develop trench foot by the time you get home. If you’re ‘lucky’ enough to have engaged in this mishap when you get home, you’ve still got an evening of stinking out the house by trying to air them on the radiator or windowsill lying ahead. A first-world problem it may be, but woe is still very much you.
