Unexpected gifts

It was a stupid thing to do but I have no one but myself to blame: I'm meeting individually with my literature students all day today and tomorrow and part of Wednesday to talk about their final papers. Every 15 minutes, a student comes walking through my office door prepared to discuss ways to improve his or her paper, or possibly not. Anything else I need to do--class preps, reading and responding to e-mail, visiting the ladies' room--has to get squeezed between appointments. The only reason I'm able to write this right now is that someone missed an appointment. As a compulsively punctual person, I generally get annoyed when people miss appointments, but today every missed appointment is like a gift, like a small quantity of breathing room tied up with a bow. If I knew where to get more of the same, that would pretty much take care of my Christmas shopping list.