Manic Monday

Today was meant to look like this:
9-12 teach.
drive madly in car to... (God. Seriously. Drive madly IN CAR? What ELSE would I DRIVE in? Gah.)
1-3 meet to discuss next year's Autumn festival
drive madly home to...
4-6.30 teach.
eat something (possibly after cooking madly)
7.30 - falling over: attend class to make up for missing weekend class due to Book Club and bloggeratti meetup.

Instead, my 11.00 student failed to turn up. They also failed to (a) call my home (b) call/text my mobile (c) email me. This would not ordinarily bother me, EXCEPT that they were attending an 11.00 lesson because they requested a time change. So I shoehorned my existing 11.00 student into 9.30, confirmed swap, well done, everyone happy, yes yes.... No show. FAIL.

So I run late with my 10.30 and head upstairs at 11.30, satisfied that I can grab a snack and head out to this meeting. I'll just grab directions from whereis. And while I do that, why don't I just check my email? Where there happens to be a message advising that the 1pm meeting has been moved... forward... to 12.00 midday. Bastards.

Ok. That's ok. I can at least call the teacher who I'm deputising and apologise (living an hour away from meeting location makes attendance pretty moot). Dial number (helpfully provided on email signature).

"Hello?"
Crap. This guy has a brick in each hand and thinks I'm a plumbing contractor (or SOMETHING, you get the picture).
"Sorry. Wrong number."
I rechecked, of course, but either I have a permanent glitch in my brain whereby I read all '8's as '6' which is only just manifesting NOW after twenty-seven years, or the contact number on the email signature is wrong.

Leave apologetic message at home number. Drum fingers maniacally. No mobile number on teacher listing either.

Ok. Call the office! That's where the meeting IS. Heck, I could probably attend via skype. Or teleconference! Excellent.

"Due to meetings at the office today, no-one is available to take your call..."
This is NOT my day.
Leave apologetic message no.2.

Randomly google teacher and scroll through several irrelevant mentions before hitting a community advertisement. With mobile number. Oh baby.
Apologise and explain trying to get onto... but... yeah. Fail on my part.
(Win: shhhh. Don't have to drive to meeting.)