The cat pissed on my avocados.

Much to my irritation, I find it is easiest to define by failure.

A friend was pitching my writing skills to his boss and – in order to reassure the man that I understood the peculiarities of SMEs – mentioned Biblo. The first question was, “if she writes so well, why did it fail?”

My response would have been, “because artfully writing about a business doesn’t negate the damaging imposition of scaffolding/factor relations and their domino effects on footfall/cashflow/will to live, so it didn’t so much fail as have failure thrust upon it.” I could probably have also pointed out that running a business and writing about it are two entirely different things; my failure at one doesn’t mean I’m incapable of the other. But failure is failure is failure. Biblo’s success was finite, so therefore it failed.

But although my failures define me, they also lead to other chances for success. And with each new failure comes an understanding of how to avoid a further series of pitfalls.

So next time I need to wrestle Misty into the carry case to take her to the Vee Ee Tee, I shall, a) try not to use the kitchen island as a field of battle but b) move all of the fruit and veg baskets from the shelves underneath just in case.

Not unrelated: tonight’s menu no longer includes guacamole.