Lapses in Responsibility


I haven’t had a great week for thinking through the consequences of my actions. Over the weekend, I ran a red light. Not by all that much, I thought, and not so badly, given the standards of this town,—but still, badly enough that a cop on a motorcycle pulled me over and gave me a warning. My guess is that it was my habit of calling him “sir” that made him let me off without a ticket.

That or my until-Saturday clean record.

Then, on Monday, I locked myself out of my apartment in a particularly brilliant way. I was on my way out at the time, and I got a phone call, and in the confusion, went into the foyer of my building and let hte door swing shut behind me. Through the glass in the door, I could see my backpack on a table in the hall. Next to it: my keys. And behind them both: the open door to my apartment. That’s about as badly as it’s possible to lock yourself out, no?

My landlord came through big time: he got in touch with a former tenant who had kept a key to the building. And luckily for me, I’d left a spare car key in my wallet, so I was able to drive out into the suburbs and pick up the building key. I was just extremely glad that I hadn’t put my generic Club on when I’d parked the car, because the key to that was sitting on the keyring with my apartment key.