The White Rabbit Rides Again

In sixth grade I (famously) played the White Rabbit in my elementary school's production of Alice in Wonderland. I made my entrance through a door in the back of the gymnasium and wound my way through the audience singing my grand aria "I'm Late, I'm Late" without a microphone...and still, I am the only child who's even remotely audible on the video tape. Actually, "remotely audible" doesn't begin to cover it. Imagine a 10 year old in a bunny suit impersonating Ethel Merman and you'll get the idea. No stage mother ever had to yell at me to sing out.

I was reminded of that this morning because I was late. Now, as I'm sure my friends can attest, I am *never* late. Throw a party, I will be the first one to arrive. If I'm meeting you somewhere, I will be there first. I do not like being late. I prefer to arrive somewhere 20 minutes early and hang out rather than be 2 minutes late. I start to hyperventilate.

So this morning I was late. For a job interview.

The place is 15 minutes away and I left 45 minutes early. Unfortunately, it's in a part of town I don't know very well. I did Google map the directions, but there was one of those "right lane must turn right" lanes that I didn't anticipate and a truck was preventing me from moving over. "No big deal," I thought, "I have plenty of time and a great sense of direction, I'll find it."

Ha.

Oh, I was sooooo lost. I mean, okay, I knew where I was. I knew where I wanted to go. I just could not for the life of me figure out how to get there. So then I decided to just go back to where I'd gone wrong the first time, but I took a wrong turn trying to get there and ended up even further away. (Cue tears.) I called to say that I was running behind, and showed up about 15 minutes late. They were very nice about it and said it happens all the time. (They are in a kind of weird location, actually.) I think the interview went okay, but I was still flustered and distracted. I don't like being late.

Then I came home and discovered an email from a company I had applied to last night. "All resumes must be accompanied by a completed application, which can be obtained by following this link," the email said. I was in the process of writing them a polite "I DID send you the application, I put it in the same file as the resume, you twit" email when it occurred to me to double check. Oops. I'd saved the file in the wrong folder. Not only did I not send the completed application, I'd sent them a cover letter addressed to someone else.

Crud.