In which I reveal myself to be an idiot

Everybody makes mistakes.  Even, it turns out, y’r obdt srvnt.

Tonight, I made a big one.

I was scheduled to give a fireside on the Book of Mormon up in Salt Lake City, and I totally spaced it.  I was busy with some pressing matters, and it completely fled my mind.  I didn’t think about it the whole day.  Not even once.  Unbelievable.

I’m told that a hundred or so people were there, patiently waiting.  (Fortunately, I’m also told, the rain may have kept some away.)

I apologize to them.  I’m mortified.  Deeply embarrassed.

I’ve given hundreds of public lectures and firesides.  I’ve only made this mistake once before, to my knowledge, and that was back, probably, around 1989 or so.

Fortunately, somebody was there in the audience who had recently prepared and made a presentation on a different subject, and that person generously stepped into the breach.

I have no excuse.  No justification.

But, as I’ve tried to cheer myself up in the wake of this fiasco, I’ve thought of one good thing:

I’ve made my mistake.  That’s it.  Perhaps I had to prove to myself that I was fallible.  And now I’ve done it.  So you can rest assured that all of my opinions on movies, religion, politics, restaurants, travel, plays, concerts, and books are 100% correct.

There was always a fear that I might someday make a mistake.  Well, that day has come.  And gone.

All levity aside, though — and that was pretty weak levity — I’m profoundly sorry.  I apologize to all those who came to the event expecting to hear me, and whom I let down.