Bright Ideas

 
Every day we are surrounded by someone's bright ideas. Many of these ingenious creations come with a little "i" before them and make our lives incredibly convenient. Others are just plain fantastic (hello, nut chopper from Pampered Chef, I do love you). But in a world of great creativity, I am here to give a shout out to the other kinds of ideas—the not-so-bright kind. These little dud-nuggets often make for the best stories, and when we are 90, they may be as valuable to us as the bright kind.

One of these moments came for me 2 years ago as I was getting into my work elevator at 7:15 in the morning and noticed that my shirt was inside out. I would like to think that had it been later in the day and my frosted mini-wheats were fully digested that I would have decided to fix this in a bathroom. Lucky for all who know the story, I did not. I decided that 5 floors of elevator traveling time was more than enough to remove my shirt and get it right side out. And it might have been had the elevator not stopped on floor 2. In complete horror, with my shirt in hand and my striped bra out for heaven-knows-who to see, I panicked. I leapt like a frog on a lily pad across the elevator and slammed the button that read EMERGENCY (I justified that this truly was one). With a mind-numbing alarm going off and the assured belief that a SWAT team was going to be waiting for me when this was over, I quickly shoved myself back into my shirt, smoothing my hair with the same urgency that you pet a new puppy. I re-hit the elevator button, the doors opened, and the only person staring back at me was the building's old maintenance man who was completely indifferent to what felt like the 15 scariest seconds of my life. I walked quickly to my desk, sat down, and burst out into laughter.

My recommendation is this: own your own crazy and never assume you can accomplish anything in an elevator, no matter how many floors you have to go.