Today was my very first day at my brand new internship. I took my less-than comfortable seat on the train and basked in pure excitement and anticipation as my summer officially began. But wait, I am ahead of myself, the first detail of this story is how I left my coffee (that my father so lovingly brewed for me) in the car. So my coffee is in the car and I am at the train station – I panic briefly but quickly enter problem-solving mode and buy a less-than mediocre cup of coffee from the train station. Then I get on the (extremely crowded) train. I get comfortable, pop my headphones in, and sit while the train bobs me side-to-side slowly sipping my coffee. About 30 minutes in I realize my coffee cup has a leak, that’s ok, I remind myself, I’ll just be veryyyyy careful while I drink it. Though I should’ve known that nothing I – Samantha Renee Guarnieri – do is careful and/or graceful. SUDDENLY I feel a warm drip on my chest, only to look down and realize I’ve spilt coffee on my freshly washed WHITE t-shirt. Let me remind you, it isn’t even nine o’clock yet and I am on my way to my first day at my new internship and I now have an awful coffee stain on my clean white t-shirt. I am bummed, SO bummed!

So I sat and sulked for a little bit before deciding that this minor catastrophe was an opportunity to learn a very important life lesson. The life lesson I learned today was that one can truly never be too prepared. Here I was, early in the morning, en route to my first day with a packed lunch, meticulously selected outfit, and even an extra pair of shoes in my bag just in case. In my mind nothing could’ve gone wrong because I was prepared – though to my dismay, not too prepared. Basically, shit happens and there really is nothing I, or you can do about it. We have to accept the coffee stains and move on with our lives.

A very awkward picture of my coffee stained white t-shirt.

Samantha