If you didn't know me, you wouldn't think it was possible for someone to make
quite so many mistakes in a row.
December 26 last year. After a late-night Christmas party, I was up at 5.30 to work a 7am shift that morning. It was dark and pouring with rain and despite being summer, it was a very cold morning. I had a 2km walk to catch my bus, and I couldn't find an umbrella, and... for some reason it didn't occur to me to bring a jacket or cardigan or anything.
So I ran through the rain to the station, getting absolutely soaked. Near the station, I suddenly stopped.
Shit. It's Saturday.
Different public transport timetable.
Oh well. I checked the timetable at the bus stop. Well, on Saturdays there was a bus at 52 past. I'd be at work 10-15 minutes late, and I actually have to be early for handover. Dammit. I scrolled through my phone to find work's number, only to recall that a couple of days before my sister and I had done something with our phones (I can't remember what) and the majority of my rarely-used contact list was wiped, and I hadn't fixed it yet. Dammit #2. So I shivered in the rain, freezing to death... but at 6:52 the bus didn't come. I waited another five minutes before checking the timetable again.
I'd misread.
The first bus on Saturdays was
7:52, not 6:52.
What was worse, had I read it correctly, I could have caught the train that came soon after I arrived at the bus stop, which would take me to a station 2km from work... I would have been very late, but better than this. Catching the next train, I arrived at work extremely late, stressing my head off meanwhile because I'd never been late before and I couldn't contact them and... yeah. So I raced in, dripping wet and freezing cold, and diving straight into jumbled apologies and excuses to the incharge.
He just looked at me oddly.
"Heidi... what are you doing here?"
I stood there staring foolishly at him, shivering in a growing puddle of water, rain dripping slowly off my nose.
Looked at the roster. I wasn't even on that shift.
There are moments you wish you could briefly stop existing.
So I turned round and went back home through the pouring rain.