1002 ways to goof up (continued)

496. Slide the deadbolt on a door and shut it behind you. Try to get back in through that door and realize that now it's locked with the knob's button lock.

Uh oh, she's startin' for my carton ...

FedEx delivered a box to me today.

Just a box. Nothing in it.

Okay, okay, it did have some packing material inside. And some instructions.

It was a box sent to me to ship out our older laptop for warranty service. You open the box, fill out the enclosed form; gather your laptop, power cord, adapter and original system disk; put everything in the box; cover the original shipping label with the label that's enclosed; and finally you seal the box with tape that's also enclosed. Voila, prepared for return via FedEx.

The box that you end up with looks almost exactly like it did when it arrived. So it would be completely understandable if Janet wandered into the house, saw the ready-to-ship-again box unattended, and, after having originally brought the box into the house on her brief lunch break from work down the street, opened it up again. Especially since she has a long-time habit of opening the lioness' share of deliveries that arrive in my name as if they'd arrived in her name. She takes this marriage-makes-two-people-one-flesh thing quite literally.

Thankfully, that didn't happen. She left the box alone. But it could have happened. Easily.

Never has there been more potential for me to say: Janet, Ya Goof!

For letting my guard down and leaving the box vulnerable, I must self-administer an actual admonishment: Keith, Ya Goof!

Mmm, know what I could go for? A double dip of ...

This local institution has the best frozen custard on the planet. The place looks great, too. Right out of the fifties.

Complete with a towering neon sign that unfortunately is on the fritz about 10% of the time. See below.

Doesn't the second flavor in particular sound tempting? Also a great candidate for the name of a punk band.

Whoever's behind this finicky beast--YaGoof!

Double trouble

I know a set of twins, Samuel and Andrew, who I can't tell apart, and I'm not the only one.

These young gentlemen took part in a youth service at our church recently. One of them did a reading, followed by a speaker who referred to the reading by saying, "As Samuel or Andrew just said ..."

(Name withheld), YaGoof!

C'mon, does Harry really know who's who?

Hangin' in there

I have no choice but to give my wife a double YaGoof on this one.

Janet had me hang a plaque at the Library a few weeks ago. On the back was a slot as shown above. I did a good job on that task, if I do say so myself. I screwed in the hanging screw to just the perfect amount of protrusion. I inserted the screw head into the slot and slid the plaque over for perfect leveling, but it was still plenty snug against the wall. Satisfying.

Yesterday, Janet called me at work to say that she needed some information from the back of the plaque (the contact from the group that had had the plaque made), but she couldn't get it off the wall.

"It has one of those slots, you know?" I said. "With a hole that's bigger than the slot to let the screw go in and ..."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it."

"So just slide the plaque over until it comes off."

"Okay." She said this in a way that tried not to let on that she knew that I knew that she probably wouldn't be able to do it. I know my darling pretty well, and this mechanically-oriented task wasn't up her alley.

I called the Library on the way home.

"Did you get that plaque down?"

"No."

"I'll be over."

"Thanks."

I slid it over and off.

Janet, Ya Goof!

The contact info was on a card that was taped to the back of the plaque. I removed it and took it to Janet's office--just as she could have done before giving me the plaque in the first place. But then, when I was hanging the plaque so skillfully, removing the card didn't occur to me, either. So I'll join in on the rebuke in that regard.

Janet, Ya Goof!
Keith, Ya Goof!

Hey, slow down for that fast food

Today, one of the vehicles in the YaGoof! fleet went to a McDonald's drive-through, and the driver started to talk to the ordering microphone only to realize that the order-taker hadn't been ready yet.

Reminder to wait for the cue: WTMMITYO?

McCustomer, YaGoof!