OK, so it’s day three. About time I do something idiotic.

This morning I decided to get breakfast in the café which is in the basement of the office. BUT, I didn’t know how to get there. I went to the basement when I first got in, but there wasn’t an apparent route, so rather than wander aimlessly through random offices, I resolved to go upstairs and wait until lunch time. Fortunately, shortly after my arrival upstairs, Fiona asked if anyone needed anything from the café downstairs. “YES!” I said, “I’ll go with you!” and off we went. It was so easy to get there that it’s just embarrassing that I didn’t figure it out on my own. So anyway, we go down, Fiona teaches me that the bagels really need to go in the small toaster because they burn in the big toaster (catastrophe averted, thank you Fi) but that the small toaster takes a long time. Rather than wait for my bagel in the small slow toaster, Fi decided to go back upstairs. “OK, see ya.”

So I finish toasting, spread my bagel indulgently with peanut butter and jelly (hoping secretly that someone will be horribly grossed out by it - ahhh. . . the life of a foreigner) and pay my remarkably reasonable 50p. Then I walk out of the café and back into the stairwell. I go up to my floor and THAT’s when I realiSe that I have no way of getting back ON to my floor having left my ID on my desk.

OK.

So, back down to the café level - doot de dooo. . . hmm. . . need my ID to get in there.

OK.

Back up to my floor, hoping someone will happen by. Munching on the bagel. Nope. Nobody comes by. Decide that I have a better chance of that at café level, and then maybe I can meet someone down there who will escort me back up.

In the stairwell by the café, finish my bagel. Someone came!

Back in the café, I figure out that I can get back into the lobby without needing an ID, so I do that, and then the security guard (after hearing about my mistake) lets me into the elevator bay where I fortuitously stumble across someone heading to my floor who HAS her ID and lets me in. PHEW.

Needless to say, this story, when retold by yours truly, caused politely muffled hysteria among my coworkers who are not quite yet comfortable tearing me to shreds for these silly antics, as some former coworkers were prone to do.

Also, someone asked if I was Canadian today. Did I follow a sentence with “,eh?” no. Did I eat some round, meaty bacon? no. Did my head split in half when I talked? no. I don’t get it. I guess maybe there are more Canadians here than Americans, or maybe he doesn’t like Americans and was just being optimistic? Who knows.

I pledge to try to do more dumb things more regularly, so that I have more entertaining stories to share. nighty night. . .