I’ve always been a bit of a klutz. It started in third grade when I would walk into walls, as if I couldn’t see them, and then it turned out that I actually was so nearsighted I *couldn’t* see them. Glasses definitely improved things, but not completely. Back in high school my friend/coworker Anthony used to smirk at me and say “grace and poise, grace and poise” every time I tripped over a mop bucket or yet again burned myself on the pizza oven. He didn’t say it in a mean way, though; it was actually sort of endearing – we ended up dating briefly in college so it wasn’t like he hated me. He just liked me, at least in part because I never took myself that seriously as to be embarrassed over much. He was ridiculously funny, mind you, and my sister and I still laugh sometimes over his antics; she has a hilarious story about taking him to the old Jordan Marsh basement store in Boston one time. Alas, it was definitely a situation where the friendship got ruined, and it’s too bad, but it’s all ancient history at this point.

However, the “grace and poise” has stuck with me all these years; every time I do something dumb I automatically think “grace and poise”. Thursday morning I was faced with the fact that the two-year old’s snow boots were still sopping wet from the puddle he jumped in the night before, and his rain boots were nowhere to be found. I was running late, of course, so I put him in the car minus his boots and drove him to daycare. I dropped him off and told them I was making a quick trip to Walmart and would be right back (they lock the doors promptly at 9 am). At Walmart I parked, went to hop out of the car and managed to spill my emotional support Diet Coke all over myself. Grace and poise, I thought; grace and poise. I raced into Walmart, grabbed some Spider Man rain boots for the little guy, and on my way to the self-checkout I spied a blue striped dress on a clearance rack. I impulsively grabbed it, paid, dropped the boots off at daycare, and then raced home to change out of my Diet Coke soaked pants. It wasn’t until I walked into work half an hour later that I realized that the dress was akin to the sort of dress that a Mennonite or Amish woman might wear and it looked ridiculous on me. *sigh*

Also: those stupid rain boots were $26.