The Worst Laid Plans

I am something of an expert on embarrassing myself. This should come as no surprise to anyone. My general strategy, on realizing an Embarrassment Situation has occurred is to check if anyone seems to have noticed it. If they haven't, pretend like it never happened.

Sent out a bunch of submissions and forgot to put a salutation on the emails? No idea what you're talking about. That clearly wasn't me. Nope.

If they have noticed, act like it was done on purpose. This can be achieved by either laughing hysterically or pretending the whole thing was high art.

I MEANT to leave off the dear editor part! It's a statement on writing today! HAHAHA, just kidding. But I totally did mean to leave it off. As a joke. Or something.

Other serial self embarrassers should find these strategies highly helpful and effective. So when you get bubbly off drinking too much mountain dew and botch a bunch of poetry submissions, remember: ignore, defend, laugh off. IDLO. I need a better acronym.