Sep 30th, 2022 Friday Sunny
That was a rough Wednesday when nothing went as expected.
I had a dental appointment in the middle of the working day, but I figured that I could take an hour or so in between meetings to get that done. I planned the driving route, and set up an alarm to leave work on time.
Of course, that morning many urgent emails flew in, and I still had at least five action items on my to-do list when the alarm rung.
“Let me just wrap this one thing up so I can cross it off my list.” I thought to myself, “I could be a couple of minutes late and that should be fine.”
It took me another five minutes to be ready. Once in my car, I decided to rush a little bit to make up for the lost time. I should still be able to arrive punctually if the traffic was not bad.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), the traffic was light, and I drove almost non-stop until…I realized that I missed my turn.
“That’s okay, I can navigate my way back.” I assured myself, after turning onto a side road that should lead to the road in front of the dental clinic.
Within one minute I reached a sign that read “road closed for work. No access to XX road (the road I need to get to)”.
“Wow isn’t that great.” Not sure what to do, I made a left turn, in the hope of somehow finding an alternative way on the fly.
It turned out to be the wrong way of turning. Had I turned right, I would have reached a familiar road, but five minutes later, I found myself completely lost among all the residential streets.
And the same mistake of reaching a major road then making a wrong turn happened again. And again. By the time I was able to park at the dental office, I was thirty minutes late, so I had to reschedule this appointment, and no spot could work for me until November. I felt like a dummy driving around for nearly an hour, wasted all the gas when gas price was skyrocketing, and achieved absolutely nothing 🙁
Lesson learned. Next time I must plan to arrive at an appointment at least five minutes early. And I WILL stick to the plan.
To be honest, although this incidence was unexpected, I should be able to see it coming. I used to always be early to these appointments (then I had to wait in the lobby), then I was right on time, then I started being five minutes late, ten minutes late, and last appointment I was fifteen minutes late. I apologized and the receptionist still checked me in. If I paid my price the very first time I was late, this would probably never have happened. I have been pushing my luck, and that eventually ran out.
Sometimes important life lessons have to be learned the hard way.
Thankfully, not everything unexpected is negative. This puffball mushroom was totally a pleasant surprise, a nature’s gift for the start of the fall season. Thinly sliced and pan-fried with butter, it was a welcome addition to the dinner table 😛