Yesterday was my first day of fall semester at Northwest Missouri State University, where I have been teaching for 21 years. And it was the most spectacularly bad day I’ve had in ages. I’m still laughing about it.

It started with getting in to Maryville after five hours sleep. That’s okay — I get dressed in my good clothes and put on makeup and even get my parking hang tag and card swiper (for attendance) before arriving at my office. I have time for last minute prep. I hook my computer in and turn it on —

ZAPZAPZAPZAPZAP… my computer keeps making this buzzing noise, and I turn it off and on again. And it doesn’t turn on. I grab my cell phone to call the help desk, and find I left my cell phone at home. And I don’t have any Nepresso pods in my office. 

I borrow the old spare computer and — it doesn’t work either.

So, instead of covering the course site and syllabus, I have to completely wing two sessions of case management. I did marvelously, at least. I can’t answer student emails. I can’t text Richard. I can’t look at cat videos to de-stress.

All I can do is laugh.

So I type this on my home computer (which is itself broken in that it doesn’t have any USB ports working) which I might bring to school while waiting for my work computer to get fixed. I can’t hook it up to the projector without USB ports, so I’ll have to wing it again today. 

Good thing I have a sense of humor.