We’ve all done it. Picked up the phone, dialed a number we’ve dialed dozens of times before to talk to someone we talk to on a regular basis, only to discover that we had misdialed and have now inadvertently shared our entire day to a complete stranger in a less than a minute.
Thankfully, we were interrupted before we got to the really juicy parts.
Admit it…you’ve done it too.
But just imagine getting the wrong number on a much grander scale. Imagine it in 3D.
The girls were invited to sleep over at a friend’s house recently. The girl had recently moved to a new neighborhood—one that we were very familiar with, but had never visited.
The girls had the address so we entered it into my infallible GPS. The course was mapped and we were on our way. Within a few minutes, we were pulling up to the driveway to drop the girls off. They had just got off the phone with their friend, and they mentioned that the girl lived in a house with a very steep driveway, and perhaps we should just drop them at the bottom.
It WAS a very dark night, and it WAS a very steep driveway. But we were driving the Land Rover, with four wheel drive, and we weren’t about to leave the girls to walk up the driveway in the dark.
So up the driveway we went, and once the girls were safely out of the way, we turned around at the top and headed back down into the night. They aren’t small children anymore, so walking them to the door isn’t usually necessary, especially when dropping them off with a well known friend, so we left straight away. But just to be sure, as we were exiting the neighborhood, I dialed one of their phones to see if they got in ok.
As it turns out, we had left them at the wrong house.
The GPS may be infallible, but apparently, I’m not the only one with shoddy night vision. Instead of dropping the girls at house number 950, we dropped them at house number 980. Steep driveways all look alike in the dark, I guess.
Luckily, their friend only lived a few houses up the street.
After a momentary bout of guilty conscience, Mike and I got a good laugh out of the whole thing. The girls found it funny, so why shouldn’t we. It brought back memories of a similar incident that occurred on Halloween a few years back…
All four kids were out trick or treating together, with Spencer (as the oldest) supervising. He drove them to our old neighborhood, where there are far more houses and therefore more opportunities for candy. The thing about the old neighborhood is that it’s pretty popular with the trick or treaters, so it can get pretty crazy out there. When Spencer decided that he had spent enough time out with the kids, he told them it was time to go. At that very moment, a car that looked exactly like ours drove up and paused in front of the same house the kids were passing. Mady walked up to the car, opened the rear passenger door and proceeded to get in. To a total stranger’s car.
Apparently, the people in the car were just as shocked as Mady when she sat down in the backseat with her loaded bag of candy. It never occurred to her that since Spencer had driven them, our car would still be in the driveway at home.
Spencer relayed the story as best as he could while laughing hysterically the whole time. And poor Mady knew that she would never live that story down…not as long as Spencer draws breath.
I suppose it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one prone to such embarrassing idiocy. Even if perhaps it does happen to me more often than the average person.
I’m not complaining…for every embarrassing moment, there is a really good blog just waiting to be written!
Until the next time…I’ll be dialing the phone very carefully!