Why You Should Always Pay Attention to Your Surroundings

Monday afternoon, I did something very stupid, and learned a very important life lesson: Always pay attention to what you're doing.

I was sitting in my fourth block class, bored and tired, when I decided to pull out a pen and paper and draw some doodles. My cousin, who is an artist, had just given me a new fancy pen which she told me is really good to draw with, so I pulled that pen out in order to try it. While I was fishing around in my backpack, I also decided to pull out a piece of gum. My teacher then asked me a question. While answering, I uncapped the pen and unwrapped the piece of gum without looking and placed both in my lap, then got to drawing. I got halfway through a picture before I realized I had yet to actually place the gum in my mouth, and reached in my lap, continuing to draw while I did so.

I picked up the piece of gum, placed it into my mouth, and bit down, when suddenly pain shot through my tooth and I felt something powdery in my mouth.

I had put the pen cap in my mouth, not the gum.

At this point, I was disgusted, because I had assumed that the pen cap had come apart slight, leaving that residue in my mouth, but I was quick to discover that it was not paint residue; no, it was the dust of my right canine which had ground down when I bit into the pen. Now, my normally sharp, vampire-esque tooth is a flat stub which is constantly in pain, and I am headed to the doctors today after school.

This situation would have been completely avoidable had I paid attention to what I was doing, or better yet, paid attention in class instead of doodling. However, actually taking the responsibility for my own mistakes would be far too adult and make for a boring ending to this tale. Therefore...

I blame my cousin. She is the one that gave me the pen, after all.