I like to think I’m rather smart. Perhaps, that is a common trait for all humankind to think that on some level. “I may not be the brightest, but I am not some dummy.” Some days I believe it, other days, well, I try to think of other talents I might possess. Think I’m being hard on myself? That’s kind of you but I’m about to share a story that proves my point. Unfortunately, it’s all true.

Let me set up the scene with some background. Once a month, I teach a church class on Sunday. I like to use visuals in my lesson and have put together a small bag of equipment I need to use. It contains several cables and cords along with other assorted equipment to hook up my computer to the monitor in the room. In this bag I keep a small container with smaller connectors. In this, I keep an Apple to HDMI connector thingy (my name for it) and another one for my laptop to HDMI. I just keep everything I may need in the bag and never give it a second thought.

I normally teach on the 4th Sunday of the month but because of my recent vacation, I switched Sundays in March. I taught the second Sunday. Due to various scheduling, I didn’t teach again until the fourth Sunday in May. If you’re good at math and calendars I don’t need to tell you how long of a stretch that was. If you’re not good at figuring that out, I’ll tell you, it was about 11 weeks. Which shouldn’t be too big of a deal except for a person that tends to forget things if she isn’t constantly doing them.

During the 11 weeks I had off, I purchased a new projector. So, of course I had to try it out. I dug out my small container of connectors from my teaching bag of tricks. “I better remember to put that back in my bag,” I thought, “or I’m going to be in trouble when it comes time to teach again.” Which was a helpful thought. It would have been even more helpful if I had followed through with it. Don’t get me wrong, I started to follow through with the plan. I just didn’t follow it to completion.

Fast forward to the 4th Sunday of May. My turn to teach again. I should mention, I had a dream the night before of going to teach my lesson and forgetting something I needed for it. In my dream, my home was about 10 hours away from the church so I couldn’t just run back and get it. I had to make-do and do without. In my dream, that is.

Normally, I like to arrive about a half hour early to set up. But I was out of my routine and didn’t make it until closer to 15 minutes before church started. I set up the classroom and went to connect my computer to the monitor and that’s when I realized I didn’t follow that great plan of putting the small container back in the bag all the way through to the end.

In vain, I searched my whole bag – in the off chance my connector I needed jumped out of the container I keep it in and decided to travel to other parts of the bag for a visit. No such luck. I vaguely remembered digging out the container for my new projector and assumed I left it by my new toy.

As it happens, my sister was visiting that weekend and I called her to see if I could catch her before she left. She didn’t pick up. While I don’t actually live 10 hours away from the church, it was now about five minutes before Sacrament meeting started. I live about 5 minutes away so I could have run home and back but then I would have missed partaking of the sacrament. Which is the whole point of church. I decided I would wait until after that then run home and be back to the church before the scheduled musical number in the middle of the meeting. No problem!

I went to the chapel and waited for the meeting to begin while second guessing my decision. “This seems long,” I thought. “Maybe I could have made it home and back. Should I have gone? Should I go now? No, it’s too late, now.”

My sister and dad came in and I told my sister my situation. She looked at her phone and saw my missed call. “Oh,” she said.

The meeting started and after the passing of the sacrament I ran home. I fully expected to be back in 10 minutes. Class didn’t start for about another 40 minutes . No problem!

Except when I got home, the connector container wasn’t where I thought it was going to be. I know it had been there at one time because my Apple connector was still attached to the projector. Unfortunately, I needed the other one. The one still in the container. Uh-oh. I looked to see if it took a trip behind the chair. Nope. In my box of random stuff I never seem to put away. Nope. In my box of books? Nope. Did it take a trip behind the table? Nope. Crud.

Maybe it was in the same room as the bag? No, that would be ridiculous. Why would I take it to the room and not put it in the bag? If I took it to the room, surely I would have put it in the bag. So why even look there?

But it was nowhere to be found.

After exhausting all possible and improbable locations, I finally looked in the room I keep the bag in. By this time, I could have sworn I might have remembered seeing it on a certain table in that room. I was wrong. It was not on the table in the bag’s room. It was on the stool right next to where I keep the bag. Just to help you keep track of the story, I had taken it to the room and placed it on the stool right next to the bag – but did not finish the last step of putting it back in the bag.

I grabbed the container and took it upstairs. It was now about twenty minutes until sacrament meeting finished. I still had time to get to the church and hook up my computer and listen to the last hymn and prayer. No problem!

On my way out, I realized I hadn’t switched my glasses. I have two pairs of glasses. One for seeing distance (which is what I had on) and the other for sitting at my computer (which I use when I teach). I placed the container on the counter and switched my glasses and was off again.

When I got down the road, I had a thought to make sure I had the connector since that is what I went home for after all. It was more of a joke. Like, hey, wouldn’t it be awful if I got to the church and didn’t have the connector still? Ha ha. That would be funny. I’m not that stu…I looked at the passenger seat and nothing was there. Did I put it in the back seat for some strange reason? I pulled over and looked. Nope. Not there either. I totally forgot it. Again.

Luckily, I was just down the road so I went around the block and pulled into my driveway again. The neighborhood kids were all out watching me pull up. Again.

I went into the kitchen and sure enough, there was the container with the needed connector sitting by my eye glasses case. Patiently waiting for me to return. I grabbed it and put it in the passenger seat. During that five-minute drive to the church I probably looked at it a hundred times just to make sure it was there.

I arrived and finished setting up for my lesson with about five minutes to spare. Mainly because sacrament meeting went a tad long.

So yes, I like to think I’m rather smart but then days like this happen and I’m really not sure. If you ask me how I’m doing I’ll tell you this story and let you be the judge.