I woke up on the roadside daydreaming about the way things sometimes are (Bob Dylan)

The winter sun is streaming through the window blinds onto my desk in the teacher work room at school. I have my headphones on* to concentrate on my marking (just finished marking my Y12 responses to a poem on Schoology and it can get noisy in the workroom) and thinking about my plonkerisms of the week.

[*Feeder are singing Morning Life just for me - perfect].

One of my teacher colleagues (she's sitting two seats away from me - let's call her Toni) had a moment of sheer panic during the week when things didn't go quite to plan and I consoled her with the message that we all stuff up from time to time. Especially when we're rushed. Take moi frinstance.

Take Thursday frinstance.

I had a dental appointment straight after school and I was teaching all afternoon so no clear opportunities to brush my teeth (I'd checked at home in the morning that I had toothpaste and a brush in my bag). During a break between period 4 and 5 I dashed up to the staffroom and grabbed my bag containing said brush etc. As I was doing so some girls appeared at the staffroom door and asked me to deposit work on various teachers' desks. I huffed and puffed, conscious that my period 5 class were all waiting for me, and did these jobs for them.

Now I was really pushed for time. I went into the men's, grabbed my stuff from my bag and brushed my teeth.

Funny I thought - doesn't taste like my usual toothpaste. I spat out and looked at the tube - it looked like it was a Colgate toothpaste tube, but 'Extra strength Hydrocortisone' is what it said on the label. WHAT THE HEY?????

Oh. my. giddy. aunt.

I stared at the label, grabbed handfuls of water like a crazy person and read the back of the tube - something about 'if swallowed contact the poison centre NOW!!!'

Did I inhale? No I didn't. Did I?

I shrugged, tried hard to scrape the hydrocortisone off my teeth and gums and went downstairs to my classroom, and wondered what my dentist was going to say (he laughed - said, "At least you didn't superglue your lips together" and got on with repairing my steroid coated broken filing).

Plonker! Right there.

Love and peace - Wozza