On the subject of dropping things:

I used to hang out with a lot of heavy drinkers in the tabloid newspaper biz. At a big party, a glass slipped from my hand and shattered on the cement tile floor.

The conversations of a few hundred people came to an absolute halt. Silence. Gulp.

I was chatting with an an older Aussie guy, and I said something like, "OMG, everyone stopped talking to look at me."

"Not at all, my dear," he said. "They're checking to see if it's their drink that fell on the floor." What an old smoothie!

But to tie this back to the forum -- it's probably true that people are most always so concerned with their own flaws, failures, and foibles that they have no time for ours.