Ten Silly Little Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

There are some lessons in life that don’t become obvious until you’re right there in the middle of the situation that - with a little forethought - you could have avoided in the first place. Here is a light-hearted look at some of the dumb little things I’ve done that I actually learned from.

1. Never clean your glasses with the kitchen tea towel.
I stumbled across this gem one day when I couldn’t work out why my eyesight was so blurry. The more I cleaned my glasses the worse it got. It took me a while to realize that somehow, I had gotten butter on a corner of the tea towel and was trying to use that particular spot to wipe my glasses. Lazy, I know. Now I walk to the other room to use the proper wipes.

2. Never leave your dog and your lunch alone in the car at the same time.
Does this one even need explaining? What I will say, though, is that even if your ham and cheese sandwich is in a sealed plastic bag, zipped inside your handbag, she will find it.

3. Never get dressed in the dark.
I’ve been caught twice with this one – Once it was hopping into the car to find I was wearing two different shoes and the other was arriving at work to find my leggings were on inside out.

4. Before using a public toilet, check for paper.
Suffice to say I now carry tissues just in case I forget my own rule.

5. Always add at least fifteen minutes to your estimated travelling time.
My daily commute takes me up and around winding hills. The day I’m running late is the day a local farmer decides to drive his huge, slow, chugging machine up those hills. Never fails.

6. When typing an important document, remember to hit 'save' at regular intervals.
I lost a complete four-thousand-word story. Yes - I cried - a lot.

7. Never put food in the fridge at work without labelling it first.
It’s a terrible feeling standing there hungry, with the door open, wondering where your pasta salad went. Over-zealous staff members – also known as self-nominated kitchen police - assume that if it’s not labelled, it must be old and bin-worthy.

8. If it looks like a scam or sounds like a scam you can pretty much assume it’s a scam.
I worked this one out after I entered the free draw to win a shopping voucher and was bombarded with charges on my phone for some game I supposedly agreed to purchase.

9. Never assume that your quarter tank of petrol will be enough.
Especially if you get caught up in crawling traffic with no chance of overtaking and all the petrol pumps in the area are shut down due to a power blackout.

10. The shortest queue is not always the quickest.
It’s happened to all of us, right? We line up at the shortest queue only to find that the reason it’s the shortest is because all the observant shoppers realised that there was a trainee operator or price-check query. This is even more frustrating if you’ve already started unloading your trolley, there are people behind you and you're blocked in.

There are probably a hundred more blunders just as bad as these in my repertoir, but these are some of the more obvious, recent ones. I hope that by sharing my lessons it makes you feel better about the stupid things you’ve done. I’d love to read about some of them if you’re not too embarrassed to share.


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