You know it's going to be a bad day when something topologically implausible happens to you before you even step into the office.

As usual, I took the excessively cold-sensitive hard disk cartridge out of my car stereo this morning and put it in my coat pocket so it could come inside and keep warm during the day. Today, I missed the pocket and accidentally dropped the disk down the hole in the coat lining, so that it fell down into the cavity between the lining and the main coat fabric.

That's not too surprising; that hole has been steadily growing for a while and it probably wants fixing now. What was odd was that I then stuck my hand into the hole in search of the thing, but when I found it there was a layer of lining fabric between it and me. Huh? Did it go into the pocket after all? <grope> No. Are there two different holes in the coat lining? <examine> No. Are there in fact two layers of lining at all to make this occurrence topologically feasible? <rub between fingers> Apparently not. So how the devil has the wretched thing managed to be separated from me by a layer of fabric no matter what I do?

I did get it out in the end, but not by any means that yielded a greater understanding of what had happened. That coat has served me well for <counts> seven and a half years now and survived several major repairs, but I wonder if it starting to flout basic mathematical principles might be a sign that it's time I finally started thinking about getting a new one.