I'm an Idiot. Example #379

I've used the same backpack for almost a year and a half. It's green, has a nice corduroy laptop pocket, and generally most of the amenities you'd expect from a moderately large backpack - iPod pouch, cellphone pocket, water bottle compartment, even a special bag to put computer cords in that fits in a specific mesh holder on the inside. After over a year, one would expect to know everything about said backpack, and appropriately have crap everywhere in it.

Done and done.

Despite all of the wonderful things about it, the thing that has annoyed me to no end were the black straps that go around your waist and clip together in the middle. They hung down very low and slapped against my legs. This didn't hurt, but it was annoying and the straps themselves were pretty flimsy and didn't do much for support.
Early on, I always had them clipped together and adjusted tight against the bottom of the backpack, so that they were out of the way. This was annoying as it drove the clipped pieces into the small of my back.
So for a while I used them as they are intended, clipping them together around my waist. Naturally, I forgot about this every time I took my backpack off, which trust me, is not a good way to show how savvy you are with a fancy awesome backpack (see idiocy example #236).
Finally I got into the habit of wrapping them around the straps that attach the backpack to the shoulder pads. While this undoubtedly looked stupid, a mass of seatbelt material on either side of my body, it worked pretty well, and I didn't think about it much, except when I had to re-wrap them around the straps. This, actually was somewhat constant.
Nevertheless, I continued to this. Until Wednesday.

After work on Wednesday, I went to catch the bus. As this is what I always do everyday, it doesn't really matter. Except that when I took my backpack off and sat down, one of the clip straps that was not wound up very much, swung underneath the seat and got stuck on the lip of the bus seat. It wasn't stuck permanently, nor was it broken, but when I looked down at the strap, I saw something that in a year and a half of ownership I had somehow failed to see: Velcro.

Yes, boys and girls, the straps which had served no purpose and annoyed me from day one and that I once contemplated cutting off were attached to metal clips at the base of my backpack with Velcro. VELCRO. As in, you can remove them from your backpack in about 2.3 seconds.

Idiot? Table for one? Yes, lead the way sir. I'll have the special.