Cold calling

Car clutch croaked, hence standing freezing in minus 10 degrees Celsius at a bus stop at 06.50, then bouncing in a bus for half an hour, then walking ten minutes, bouncing in another bus for fifteen minutes, cupping coffee to reheat bones, only to enter a room full of students, explain my plight, and hear them tell me that I shouldn't have bothered for they would not have minded at all if I had just cancelled the lecture on reduction-oxidation reactions and quantitative analysis. And I was so diligently trying not to disappoint them.