be stupid, win prizes

Wednesday, I met wit a tutor student at the downtown library, and when I came out after our session, lo and behold...my car was MISSING! Seriously? Who would steal a little 2000 Toyota in the middle of the day from in front of a public building?!

The library is a decent sized building. Rather than having a designated parking lot, it has parking spaces all around the perimeter. I've only been there a few times, and usually I was on my bicycle. But yesterday, I drove there, parked, went inside, came back out, and gone. I was aghast.

When I'd arrived, it was pouring down rain. I realized that, Yay, I had an umbrella in the car, and I secured my bag o' tutor stuff before heading into the deluge and making my way into the library. 

All that to explain... I hadn't really paid attention to where I'd parked. *ahem*

The spot I coulda swore I parked in was actually around the corner from where I'd actually parked and where my little Toyota was sitting the whole time. But what a FREAK OUT! I was so happy to hunt down a thing I already owned!

Earlier in the day, I'd met with a different student at a different location: the student center at the college where I work. When I got home from that appointment, I realized I'd left my water bottle behind. Doofus. The campus lost and found happens to be right across the hall from where I work, and I know they get a ton of water bottles each semester, so surely someone would turn mine in. I'd hopefully find it across the hall when at work the next day.

But  nothing. There was one lone plastic lowly water bottle on the lost and found cart. Not mine. 

During a break in the work action, I made my way to the student center to see if there was any sign of my beloved water bottle. PFFFT, it was sitting on the table right where I'd left it the day before. 

Okay, there's not a lot of traffic in the student center since we're in summer semester. The few people going in probably saw a water bottle on a table and figured someone else was using that space. So BINGO, score another acquisition of something I already own!

Nothing special, but it had been a bicycle commuting prize from the grad school days. A Prize!

And speaking of tuting, I keep in my tutor bag a spare scientific calculator for when irresponsible careless reckless  students forget theirs. I don't want them borrowing my graphing calculator and do want them to feel the pain of not having their graphing calculators. So they can use the scab.

Well, when we moved just before COVID, my scab calculator went missing, never to be seen again. Then COVID hit and I wasn't meeting with students in person anyway. Now we're back, full face, so I asked the boss today if I could buy one of the several scientific calculators we have for people to use in the testing center. Employee deep discount used price, whatever that would be.

They're not all that expensive, but the principle of forking over for irresponsible careless reckless  students who forget to bring their own was off putting.

He thought for a second, and then said, "Y'know, back when COVID hit, the bookstore cleaned out a buncha calculators, so I got 'em. I've got a few of these that most tests don't allow, so we can't use them. You can have it."

Score! It's almost too shiny for a scab calculator. I'll have to scuff it up a bit.

Pretty good haul, I'd say. 

It's made me realize... 

a good way to solve a problem, apparently, is to first create the problem.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

4. Write a blog post inspired by the word: hunt