A friend of mine, Chuck, was telling me about packing for an emergency trip and how he realized when he was "done" that he hadn't included things like underwear, sox, shaving kit, medicines... silly little things that he might need. He then posed the question for the ages: "I then wondered, what the **** did I put in the bag?"
Having performed this particular bit of insanity myself, I understand the dilemma. It's a "DUH!" moment for sure.
I have quite a few of my own personal "DUH!" moments...
One day, I had been anxiously engaged in doing housework while trotting around with the portable phone to answer and attend to the various phone calls that fill my day. I remember putting away laundry stacks, sweeping up a dog hair 'tumblefur' the size of a small Nubian goat, and carrying the trash out. Stopping only for the sole purpose of making myself a cool drink while I chatted away with a friend, I finished my call and carried on with the chores.
Later, I heard a muffled ringing sound. Unsure of the source, I followed the sound. It was coming from the freezer.
Yes, happy campers. In my zeal to make myself some ice cold lemonade, I had completed my call and 'iced' the phone. There it sat on the shelf in the freezer ringing away. I never would have found where I put it had there been no other calls that day.
Then there are the times that I search in vain for my car keys. I know full well that I had them only moments before because I drove home in my car. Searching the house high and low, checking pockets and purses and counter tops from front to back of our home, including in jackets I haven't worn since Christmas, I am befuddled by the loss of my keys.
At the moment of deepest despair and prayer over my lost keyring, I go to see if perhaps I dropped them outside (although I never could have gotten into the house without them!). To my horror, I find them still in the lock in the doorknob inviting burglars and con men alike to just come on in and help themselves!
I've also left my purse and books on top of my car before. Whizzing out of the school parking lot, I realized what I had done just in time to see them fly off into the two lanes of northbound highway traffic. Have you ever tried to keep a semi from running over your term paper? They aren't amused and neither was I.
I promise I'm not stupid. Perhaps...
It does give me a feeling of slight relief to realize that I am not the only person on the planet who does inane things. But I am still left with the pang of realizing that I am deeply flawed.
I have likewise discovered that I have left the television remote in the refrigerator nestled up to the pitcher of juice.
My cell phone has been accidentally washed when I decided the pants I was wearing "might as well go in with this load of clothes".
I've searched the house room to room for my glasses only to find them either on top of my head or folded up with one arm of the glasses poked down the neck of my T-shirt where I had placed them to do a task that didn't require actual visual acuity.
My personal favorite "telling on myself" moment is when I left our portable phone in the mailbox. It would have been interesting if it had rung when the mailman dropped by for the regular mail delivery. I've always wondered what he would have done...
It may be the reason I'm not particularly annoyed when someones cell phone goes off in the middle of church or a concert. We all do stupid stuff.
Like the time I watched a lady at McDonald's carrying out an armload of food. She had locked her car, presumably so no one could sneak extra calories into it, and had to fumble for the keys. She precariously lifted and gently placed all of the food onto the roof of her car.
After some long moments, she triumphantly found her keys, opened the door, hopped in and started her engine, slammed the door and drove off faster than I could have imagined and long before I could manage to flag her down to tell her that her dinner was now decorating Highway 31.
I laughed until the tears were flowing down my cheeks. It was laughter of understanding and recognition of the plight. It was laughter of watching fried food take to flight. It was the kind of laughter we all can commiserate with because it was the laughter that we feel because "it was only funny because it didn't happen to me".
Why can't their be a "DUH!" warning light that flashes with a piercing klaxon that tells us AHEAD of the moment that we are about to do something really stupid? But then, I wouldn't have anything to write about if there were.
Consoling myself with the reality that this happens to other people, I remember the story of the woman who was packing up things for a charity clothing drive to be held by her church. She searched through closets and drawers to select a reasonable assortment of used but serviceable clothing to donate to the poor.
When the woman came from her church to collect the clothing, she dutifully handed off the two large bags into which she had placed her offering.
Later, as the trash truck approached her home, she raced to the door to rush her garbage out to the curb only to realize that the bags by the garage door were, in fact, not garbage - but rather, it was the clothing she had set aside for the charity clothing drive.
Horrors! In her haste, she had given two bags of stinky household refuse and garbage to the nice volunteer church lady who was collecting for the drive.
I imagine that it was pretty tense during choir practice later that week...
