This happens to me all the time. I'm trying to get somewhere on the train, when a giant Beholder comes along and destroys everybody's minds with psionics. By the time some competent magic users arrive, I'm already late.

On a hot summer evening, it's tough to be the guy who guards the gas pump. Sometimes all the monsters who just got drunk at Horse With No Name come at you with knives and demand pints of petrol.