One Ear Bud

I'm a fairly experienced Skyper. I have my system down. Because of this I've gotten into the habit of using headphones to eliminate feedback. However, I also like to keep myself in the present, so I tend to just use one ear bud. I've been doing this for years. And I never had a problem -- until this week.

In one of those perfect storm situations the following happened. And my mother witnessed it.

During my (late) lunch break and was Skyping with my mom while she was up early and baking Christmas cookies (that's another story for another day). We were having a lovely chat. I could hear the coffee peculating and the see the tip of the dog's tail while my mom carefully rolled balls of dough onto the cookie sheet.

I casually excused myself for a moment so I could close the door which was flapping against the jamb due to the lovely cross breeze.

The next thing I knew I was on the floor. Somehow, in uncrossing my legs, my shoe buckle happened to attached to the swinging free ear bud as I was removing the other one from my ear. I looked at the computer, which thankfully was still attached to the appropriate cables and still on the desk, and saw my mom with a confused look on her face. I'm pretty sure I had the same exact look on my face. I'm really glad none of my colleagues saw it.

Strangely, it was a fairly clean break as connector was still in the computer. Safety feature? Doubtful.
I did occasionally use both ear buds, but now I just have the one I seemed to use all along.