Good needles, Bad needles

I've got nothing against needles, in fact, let's be truthful here:  It's the fingers that can "be bad".  I blame myself when things go wrong.  Lately, I've been scratching my head wondering why I haven't had more calamities to report.  That makes for more interesting reading:  Problem, and solution.
Funny, but I haven't had any 'near misses' or so I thought!
It always happens that way, doesn't it?  I finished a few things lately and said to myself, "Well, that's that!  Move along. No excitement here, just nice FO's."  I'm talking about my lacey socks, cashmere vest, and romper. 
 Socks?  My 'on needles' Busy Bee socks, two-at-a-time/not at the same row humbled me.  There was a rather noticeable botching of the "honey comb" in one sock which alerted me to my non-super-human cleverness.  I carefully removed 4 rows of just the honey comb/10 stitch pattern.  In my frustration I conveniently 'forgot' to take a picture... heh, heh.
I looked down and thought, "You're crazy, Lady!  You're 20+ rows into TWO (count 'em) 2 shawls of lace and you haven't even thought about the ramifications of a dropped stitch."
Then I looked down again at my hands and found... yikes!!  A dropped stitch.  Nothing like a dropped stitch to call attention to NOT having had forethought to put in a life-line.

#1  Mystery Shawl

After a little fudging and guessing where that stitch might end up, I (almost immediately) put in a life-line in both shawls.  Here's the second lifeline for shawl #2. (I'm awaiting instructions for shawl #1, so it needed just one life-line, so far.)  Number 2 may look a little lop-sided because--err, it is!  I'm doing the final 46 rows which are short rows making the middle longer than the ends.  Can't wait to stretch it out (blocking) to see what it really looks like...

#2 Oslo Walk Shawl

Lesson learned, THIS time...  I think I'll knit a cow.