Body bags

A benefit of Anchorage’s typical weather is that the daily newspaper is delivered in a plastic bag every day, not just when the forecast calls for rain. That’s a lot of plastic going to the landfill every year, but it’s also a lot of plastic that thrifty people can use in secondary ways. Dog owners, for example, carry pocketfuls of bags for cleaning up poop. Fortunately, I’m not into the idea of walking around on chilly mornings and picking up smelly piles of steamy dog doo.

But I love these things for protecting my cold-sensitive digits from the wind. In the spring and fall, when I’m riding without over boots, I’ll pull a bag over each set of toes before I put on my shoes. On frosty days when I expect to ride my mountain bike through creeks, I’ll pull a bag over each foot to keep it dry inside my wet Sidis.

This spring, I discovered a new use for newspaper bags when I grew tired of cold hands and dry skin on my knuckles after switching to lighter gloves. I cut off the bottom section of a bag, snip five openings in the plastic, and shove my hand in—viola, fully functional, cheap-ass glove liners. These little babies make a pair of light, full-fingered cycling gloves far more comfortable when temps are in the 40s. If I don’t rip them off too fast at the end of a ride, I can usually get a couple of rides out of each pair.

Best of all, when I wear the plastic liners after taking off my gloves for a snack, it makes Huber extra-embarrassed to be seen with me. What the hell does he expect from a guy who stands around a burn barrel drinking beer in the winter?