I made a "schoolboy" error yesterday. That is what my boss called it anyway. In planning for an office-wide business trip, I kept every detail in check, I monitored package deliveries, Iwatched every dollar that was spent, organized shipments, coordinated with vendors and venues... All seemed to be go incredibly smooth... A little too smooth - more like ice. And the slip was waiting to happen.

The cab I reordered arrived at our office to drop us all at the airport. I double-checked my bags and packages to make sure everything was in place. Opened my folder to make sure. My boarding pass was still where I placed it, climbed into the back of the mini-van yellow cab and waited for the rest of the team to start piling in.

While I waited, I exhaled after a deep inhale. All was good. As we eased out of the parking lot, I grabbed my purse to get my planner and pull out some cash to pay the cabbie, it was at that moment that all the planning, all the phone calls, all the work - my life - passed before my eyes... My planner was not in my purse, nor was it on the seat next to me. Which meant I didn't have a driver's license, cash, orcredit cards. Not even a boarding pass made of gold would get me on that plane now.

In trying to cover the big, HUGE picture, I failed to check the small screens all about me. The details of normal aiir travel, not terrorists' travel, require two things, two things that if failure occurs will preclude you from boarding: a boarding pass and a government ID. Sitting in the backseat of my little gray Honda, a half hour away was my planner, carelessly placed there, by me, when my daughter hopped in so that she could drop me at the office.

Luckily, my mind stopped listening to the screeching sound it was making and the wheels started turning, I calmly called my daughter and frantically told her she needed to come straight to the airport. Then I divied up my bags among my colleagues and boss, asking them the check them in for me then proceed tom our gate while I waited I the yellow "loading and unloading" zone for my daughter to arrive.

Within forty minutes, she did, leaving me forty minutes to get through security and to my gate. I arrived at the gate with about twenty minutes to spare, grabbed myself a grande toffee nut latte, sat back to really take that inhale/ exhale this time. That is until I spilled that precious coffee completely all around me.

I looked at my boss, "You are really not having a good day, are you?" he asked. The best laid plans...