So, I was having tomato soup this evening while I was doing some research for my anthropology essay. I had my binder of notes sitting open on my lap, and the soup on my desk, and a whole swirl of other stationary, USBs, and a complementary Cirque du Soleil egg shaker around my computer.

Today just happened to be one of those days when my inner klutz kicks in, and as I was reaching over to my keyboard to ask Google to look up something for me, I knocked my bowl of soup right into my damageable (and very biodegradable) paper notes. Great.

As I was taking out all my notes and spreading them on the ground to dry, I was surprised at how little my papers were damaged. Only two pages were significantly soaked (half of them); all the other pages were either completely untouched or had just a couple of splatters on the edges or corners.

How could a half a bowl of soup not turn my lecture notes into a pile of pulp? Well, the pages were saved by the sheet protectors I used as dividers. Even though the notes themselves weren’t in the plastic sleeves, the sheet protectors were able to section off my binder, like how ships have separate locked compartments in their bellies. The soup could only get as far as the end of the anthropology section in my binder…and I’m quite thankful for that. If it got to my psychology notes, well, let’s just say that calling upcoming mid-term exam a “nightmare” would be an understatement.

So, the moral of the story is, if you’re as clumsy as I am, and if you like eating at precarious locations such as your desk, invest in some sheet protectors. Believe it or not, they do save your pages, even if you don’t put your notes in them.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 11:10 am and is filed under Survival Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.