Basic Trope: Failing to get an apparently urgent task done in time. It turns out, it wasn't necessary.
- Straight: Alice borrows Bob's rainbow tie for a date. She accidentally gets it stained with melted chocolate and no matter how much she washes it, the stain won't go off. She then frantically searches for a replacement. She fails and confesses to Bob. He reveals he owns a bunch of identical rainbow ties.
- Exaggerated: Alice loses the rainbow tie and goes on an epic adventure to find a new one. She neglects her ordinary life on this adventures and suffers great misfortune. When she gets back, Bob thanks her for getting rid of the tie — he always hated it.
- Downplayed: Midway through washing the tie, Alice apologetically calls Bob and he tells her not to worry about it.
- Justified: Poor Communication Kills: Bob never really tells Alice much about the tie, he just owns it (and possibly a bunch of other identicalties) and doesn't tell how he feels about it. And as such, Alice thinks it's something important.
- Inverted: Alice blows off replacing the tie, thinking it wasn't important. Bob is then furious she lost the last thing his dead father ever gave him.
- Subverted: Alice sees Bob's identical ties and assumes it must not be a big deal. Turns out there was sentimental value for that particular tie.
- Double Subverted: But then Bob says it was probably time to let go of the possessions he was hoarding.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice doesn't fail an unexpectedly minor task.
- Enforced: "The lost tie storyline isn't testing well, but we should still wrap it up." "Okay, let's say Bob didn't really care about the tie."
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Bob engineered the whole thing as a Secret Test of Character to find out if Alice would work hard at something she thought was important.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob makes sure to communicate that he doesn't really care about the tie beforehand.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
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