Dropping the balls I juggle.

I had planned to use this blog post to talk about my everyday carry, but then I had one of those days where I just kept doing things wrong. It was slapstick-y. I was expecting to slip on a banana peel and hear a kazoo any minute. So I'm going to write about that instead.

Perhaps my body was in a tiny revolt about coming back from the extra-long weekend after Labor Day? Perhaps an oddly specific poltergeist was moving my belongings and/or neurons when I wasn't looking? Perhaps I am just not as organized and on top of things as I'd like to believe? In any event, the many minor things that went wrong today stayed minor, which is the important thing. In every case I had a contingency plan in place, so nothing got blown out of proportion, and today certainly reinforced my belief that I need those contingency plans.

Here are some of the things I did wrong today:
1. I pressed the coffee grind button when the receiving canister was not in place to catch the grounds. Grounds went everywhere. Also, coffee was already brewing and there was no need to make more. I just pressed it an unnecessary extra time. To be fancy.

2. I realized on the train that I left my textbook at home. You know, the one I assigned.

3. My bus was late. This was not technically my fault.

4. When I was about to eat lunch during my office hours, I discovered that it had gone bad. Roasted beets with feta and walnuts keep for a long time, but apparently not THAT long.

I would like to point out that I am NOT NEW to (1) making coffee, (2) teaching, or (3) packing lunch for myself.

BUT! I did the following and nothing turned out to be a very big deal:

1. I wiped off the counter (exciting) and this evening, I brewed the extra grounds from this morning. Not the freshest ever, but I'll store the extra coffee in the fridge and drink it cold on a warm morning.

2. I leave a reserve copy of the textbook at our school library. I borrowed it, scanned the essay for today using the Camscanner app on my phone and then printed it out for reference during class.

3. I allow for extra travel time. I still made it to my office door by the scheduled beginning of my office hours.

4. I had also packed myself a bag of fresh vegetables, so even though my main course went bad, I still had some stuff. And I keep a supply of nonperishable foods in one of my desk drawers. I ate fresh green beans and red bell pepper and a packet of peanuts for lunch. Not my finest meal, but it worked.

So, in one way, my day was marred by extreme forgetfulness and foolishness, and in another way, my day was improved by extremely judicious forethought. Like those That's Good! That's Bad! picture books.

Do you guys have contingency plans in place for when you forget things/do things wrong in a hilarious manner? I think I am in the market for some more contingency plans, here. Or do you, in fact, never do things wrong in a hilarious manner or otherwise?