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I went on an interview on Tuesday to which I was eight minutes late because my subway line was unexpectedly re-routed over a local line. It didn't occur to me that the local line was THAT much slower until I realized that I should've been in Manhattan at a time I had not yet reached the express stop two stops from my stop.

Eight minutes is not a long time. At a previous interview, the principal made me wait 45 minutes.

Still, I knew the job was gone. I felt as though I'd put myself on the breadline in one fell swoop.

Should I continue walking toward the school?

I called 411 to get the school's number -- to tell them I was walking on the way -- the number was dialed directly. No one picked up. When I got there, I learned the principal was on a long interview by phone with someone else.

I didn't stop to see what I looked like. I signed in and ran to the door. I don't know if the front bangs on my hair were fallen onto my forehead or eyebrows. I think not. I think I would've felt them, but I don't know. I ran right through traffic to make it by eight minutes.

I got out of the train, see, at the time of my interview.

Do I continue walking? This principal is known for her efficiency.

Shouldn't I just go home? Why waste everyone's time? Why give her a reason to remember my name?

I chatted with the guard as she flipped back my ID. She said the principal was nice but strict and as I went through the door, I said that I knew and eight minutes meant I was in deep trouble. I walked in and the lady on the phone waved at me and asked me to go wait in the room with the Gestetner machine where all the noise was and the people came through and when they saw me they went "Oh." This must be where she puts the dunce caps, I thought.

Then we met and I apologized and I meant it. There was nothing I could do. She seemed like it didn't matter. She also seemed like she didn't know who I was. This has happened before, but I won't know why it happened here because I was late. Anyway, she didn't know anything about me and mostly there wasn't a lot to say and I disintegrated, as I often do when people don't know me and I've already made a bad impression, into "Um" and "Oh" and "Well" and, as always, I tell the absolute truth. So, when, angrily, she asked me how long I had been working at my school (trying I could see to figure out my years of experience/age) I said, "8 years, and before that 4 years at the other school and then before that..." "I'm older than I look." She kind of nodded sort of, and the conversation just floated on our mutual loss of what to say to each other because neither of us really knew why we were there.

She tried to end encouragingly, so much so that it didn't hit me until I left how absurd what she had said was and anyway her body language was basically the equivalent of throwing me out.

Next time I can see that I'm going to be late, as I did back at that express stop, I get out of the train and re-schedule. I don't know if it would've gone that way either way, but those eight minutes mean I'll never know.