I suppose I shall tell my cycling story for the day.
I went into town (25 km or 15.5 mi round trip) to get a better headlight for my bike and pick up some soft drink. Got the headlight; $40, rechargable, nice and bright, good deal. Soft drinks were on special, so I got 3 bottles; the most I thought I could carry with my cheap, $10 pannier.
Unfortunately, I was wrong. The third bottle was having a lot of trouble fitting in there. Like the genius I am, I decided I'd shove it in there anyway and hope for the best. I start riding, and after a few minutes I'm satisfied that the bottle isn't going to fly out of the pannier, get in the path of my front wheel, and cause a horrific crash. Unfortunately, the pannier appears to be moving around, like, a LOT. I stop to find out why...one of the handles has broken! I still have the plastic bag, so I attach two bottles to my handlebar via plastic bag. I keep going for a bit longer, only to find a weird sound coming from the bag.
Clearly, the bag is touching the wheel or part of the bike on occasion. I decide to stop as soon as I'm out of magpie territory. A wise move, as suddenly I feel a touch on the back of my helmet. Oh shit, it's a magpie. I'm not sure how unique to Australia these things are, but magpies are aggressive birds that swoop down on anyone who gets into their territory. Fortunately, they tend to go for my helmet instead of my face. I pedal like mad and look to my left to see the magpie's position by the shadows. It's RIGHT FREAKING NEXT TO MY FACE, so I keep pedalling, ignoring the whining noise coming from the bag, until one of the bottles falls out of the now shredded plastic bag. There's no time to go back for my fallen comrade; I'd be a terrible soldier.
Fortunately, the pannier is still able to bear two bottles of weight, even in a damaged state, so once I'm in the clear I shift the survivor back to safety and make my way home with no further incident.
I've learnt my lesson. From now on, I'm not going to buy the cheapest crap available. Doesn't mean I need to be buying expensive stuff, but I think paying a bit of extra money for the low mid-range stuff seems applicable, considering the sheer amount of times it has now come back to bite me in the ass and make me pony up for something slightly better anyway.
The headlight, at least, works brilliantly.