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I sometimes like to think that one can learn something from my experiences. I flatter myself that there is some moral to be gleaned even from the simplest details of my little life. It makes me feel better at moments when the only result I can see from my latest blunder is embarrassment.

For example, I can tell you from first-hand experience NEVER to wear flip-flops and a heavy backpack. On a rainy day.

The second week or so of school, I was still getting used to my new schedule and was running late one morning. I live farther from campus this year, so I take the bus to school every morning. Well. I had already missed the bus a couple times since the start of school and was determined not to do it again, especially in the same week. Remember the poised, sophisticated, no-nonsense university student? She's still lingering a bit. So, in my rush I grabbed my old Wal-mart flip-flops instead of my sneakers, inhaled a granola bar, and headed out the door, a satisfied bounce in my step. My apartment complex has a beautiful park setting in the center, complete with a stony creek, park benches, and shady trees, and the morning was especially beautiful. It was a little cloudy still from the rain we'd had the day before, and it was cool.

Still nervous about missing the bus, I cut through the grassy area on my way to the stop, following a well-worn dirt path that many a running-late student has taken in an effort to shave a few seconds off the walk to the street. Walking briskly, I followed the path down a slight hill. A mere two steps away, I spotted a dip in the ground where rainwater had collected, creating a miniature bog. I planted my feet, screeching to a halt, relieved that I had seen the puddle before stepping right into it.

But I was wearing old Wal-mart flip-flops with zero traction. And a thirty-plus-pound backpack. My feet proceeded immediately to fly out from underneath me, landing me flat on my back in the middle of the quagmire.

Amazingly, the first wild thought that ran through my mind was, "Get up! Get up! You're going to miss the bus!" My feet slipped beneath me as I struggled to stand, my eyes darting frantically to the street. Then the wetness—and the cold—sank in, and I looked down.

Not only was my pant leg soaked in mud up to the knee, but my left foot had slid into the mud as I fell. I had a momentary flashback of the many hours Liz and I spent playing in the mud when we were little, and how I had enjoyed squishing it between my toes. I was not enjoying it now. I remembered that I had landed on my backside, and I twisted to examine the damage.

Only now did it dawn on me. There was no way in Hades that I was going to catch the bus. Perhaps that sophisticated student wouldn't have fallen in the mud in the first place, but she most certainly would not dream of attempting to go to class in this condition. A single giggle escaped me—then I realized there might be witnesses. Still standing in the middle of a mud puddle, I almost lost my balance again as I spun about to check behind me.

Not a soul.

Now I was laughing in earnest. What luck! I squished gingerly back to my apartment and spent a few minutes laughing at myself as I stood on one foot, alone in the middle of the livingroom. I almost wished that someone had been there to see my performance.

The philosopher in me wants very badly to turn my clumsiness into a life-lesson. The simple explanation that mud, flip-flops, and a heavy back-pack make a bad combination seems lacking. Perhaps the moral here is that, in my attempt to make up for bad time-management, I took a shortcut, and ended up on my behind in a mud puddle. There are no shortcuts for poor organization.

Ha! My proverb sounds more pathetic the more I think about it. Well. If my life cannot be inspiring, it can be entertaining. Here's to the entertainers of the world! Perhaps I should have been an actor, or a comedian?

If that is the case, I am truly sorry that there was no one to witness this:

It might have done some poor depressed soul a great deal of good.