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I was talking with a friend though chat—talking about anything that happened to cross our minds—when I made a simple request.

“Tell me a story.”

After spending a couple lines clarifying my request, my friend began to tell me of a childhood memory. One involving the family dog—a precocious and highly intelligent animal.

The story was just starting when my flatmate came home.

I didn’t want him reading over my shoulder in case the topic turned serious, so I unplugged my ethernet and switched to wireless. I had been having problems with dropouts during chats using wireless (only at home so far) and had thought to temporarily resolve it while searching for a solution using a hard line.

Sadly this was not to be the case. No sooner had I unplugged, then my chat went pair-shaped.

I wasn’t able to explain or apologize for my unintentional rudeness.

I am truly sorry though. And I do want to hear the rest of this tale.

Will you still tell it to me?

They say the best way to learn anything is to try and teach it. In teaching, you get thrown situations that you never would have thought of on your own.

I had such a situation tonight. I was to demonstrate and teach a couple scuba skills in the pool. The instructor was feeling ill (the flu) and was worried her ears wouldn’t hold up. The skills were “weightbelt remove and replace underwater” and “equipment remove and replace underwater”.

Notice the “underwater” part. That becomes important in a bit.

While everyone was setting up gear it was determined that we were short on weight. A few lead blocks were needed for a snorkeling class that was also going on (to hold down some holahoops for people to dive through…there would have been enough if not for that).

I, playing the role of nice guy and team player, surrendered the weight that I had specifically packed for personal use.

I should have known better.

On a normal pool dive, I’d have been fine. But with having to demonstrate skills, my bouyancy underwater was all over the place. I managed to demonstrate the skills adequately, but in my mind it was a little unprofessional.

Had the other instructors taken just five minutes to run down a mental list and ensure they had all they needed, it wouldn’t have happened.

In the future, my gear stays with me.