1002 ways to goof up (continued)

493. Get out of your car to pump gas without pulling the lever that opens the door to the gas tank.
492. Forget to put your gas cap back on.
491. Forget to close the door to your gas tank.
490. Forget to close the door to your gas tank.
480. Forget to put a memory card in your camera.
479. Forget to push the record button on your tape recorder.
478. Forget to secure your laptop in the case with the Velcro straps.
477. Forget to zip your laptop case.
476. Lose your grip on the soap.
475. Misstep while jumping rope.
474. Accidentally dip your nose into the whipped cream on your hot chocolate.
473. Chew with your mouth open.
472. Drive with your trunk open.
471. Pull too far forward in a parking space, so that you're car juts out too far.
470. Drift off while typingggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg and keep pressing one key.
469. Fling cake batter around your kitchen by pulling your electric mixer up too high.

Note to self: Don't guess about your guests

We have Bandies in the house.

Translation: We're hosting two students attending the PMEA Region III Band Festival being held at the Hollidaysburg Area Junior High School this week.

It's our family's first time hosting students for a special event like this. So naturally when we picked them up, there was all kinds of nervousness and hope that we wouldn't say anything stupid and make them hate us and hurt our chances of being named the Festival's Number 1 Host Family.

I was so smooth. For about six minutes. Then we were in the car and I said, "So you guys are in the ninth grade?"

"Um, we're both juniors," came the polite reply.

See, I, uh, well, because the event was in the Junior High School, I had it in my head that all of the kids were Junior High age ... and my eyes are bad ... and I hadn't really paid attention to the paperwork ... and uh, I didn't actually look at these guys closely and certainly didn't form the opinion that they looked as young and dorky as the two junior high students who are permanent fixtures in our house and ... uh ...

Sorry, dudes. Be kind when it's time to vote for Number 1 Host Family.

Maybe you could also overlook my asking you to pose for the picture below playing air trombone (Cody Way, left) and air euphonium (Mark Goncher, right).

The time of her life

It's about 9:30 pm. Janet just got back from doing some work in the office at the Library. When she left at about 7:00 pm, she said she'd be about half an hour.

So she was right five times!

1002 ways to goof up (continued)

494. Wonder why your computer mouse won't work, and then realize that you haven't connected it.

This side down

My family had to be taught the truth about the frozen pot pie, which is ...

After you heat it, you can take it out of the pan.

When my brother and sisters were growing up, we had frozen pot pies regularly. I think we favored Swanson. They only came in aluminum pans back then, and you had to bake them for dozens and dozens of minutes. I know, I know—the horror.

Anyway, it never occurred to any of us—two parents, two girls, two boys—to take a hot pot pie out of its pan, even though you always lost a little of the crust to those blasted aluminum ridges. Not knowing any better, we were eat-it-right-out-of-the-pan people.

The light bulb switched on for the entire family at once, during one memorable dinner. It was the doing of Curt Koonz—now my brother-in-law, then the boyfriend of my sister, Tina—who was eating with us. When the hot pot pies came to the table, he immediately turned his upside down onto his plate. Plud!

The rest of us stared at him—six pairs of eyes as big as pot pie pans. You could cut the enlightment with a knife. We had always used plates with pot pies only to protect the table—as big coasters, if you will.

Curt froze. "What?" he said.

Then came the sound of a half-dozen flippings. Plud! Plud! Plud! Plud! Plud! Plud!

I haven't eaten a pot pie from the pan since.

And I have five people in mind besides myself right now when I say: YaGoof!

P.S. I had a brain-freeze while writing this. Emmett had to help me with the word for the tight little folds that run up the sides of an aluminum pie pan. Hint: Six letters. Keith, YaGoof!

1002 ways to goof up (continued)

495. Fail to register your name as a web domain when you had the chance.

I'm still me

Twice this week, I've been mistaken for someone else. That about doubles such instances for my entire life.

The first time was over the phone on Tuesday, when it snowed all day. The phone rang at dinner time. It was a thin older voice.

"Keith?"

"Yes."

"Are you coming to do my driveway?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"This is ____ ____. Don't you still do snow removal?"

____ ____? I thought. "I can't place your name, ____."

"I'm at 56th Street in Altoona."

Hm.

"How did you get my number?"

"The phone book."

Hm again, because I'm the only Keith Eldred in the phone book.

"Right here (he must have been pointing to my name in his phone book)--Keith Elder."

Ah, there it was. Elder, not Eldred.

I let him down gently. He gave me a surprising amount of information before I extricated myself, including that his driveway is 75 feet long. I hope he found the right Keith.

The second incident was tonight in the grocery store. I was looking at "Best and Worst Bikini Bodies" on the cover of a publication at the checkout.

"Did Cosmo win?" I heard this out of the corner of my ear, but it had no meaning to me so I assumed it had to be addressed at someone else and finished looking at the Worst Bodies and was moving on to the Best Bodies.

"Did Cosmo win?" Still no meaning for me. Still had had to be addressed at someone else who didn't realize whom she was addressing.

"Did Cosmo win?"

I looked up. A woman older than my mother was looking at me.

"Did Cosmo win?"

"I beg your pardon?"

The woman looked at me quizzically. "Aren't you ____ ___?"

"Sorry, no."

"You look just like ____ ___."

Now, I've met ____ ___, and I was surprised to hear that I look like him. Not only surprised. Flattered. Still, I'm not ____ ____. And I still didn't know who Cosmo is.

"He entered Cosmo in the big dog show."

I'd heard on the radio earlier that the Westminster Dog Show happened this week.

"The Westminster?"

"Yes, that. It cost him $_____. And that was just in fees, not his travel and everything. And the dog has to travel, too."

"Well, I don't even have a dog," I said. Wanting to smooth over her mistake and show no harm had been done, I added, "I did hear a good joke about the Westminster today."

"Oh?"

"Well, you know how a beagle won for the first time?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well, it was proclaimed a victory in the war against terriers."

You may think that I manufactured this post just so I could work in that joke. I agree that it's pretty good, but believe me, that would have been more work that it was worth.

I'll have to get some more jokes ready to repeat to confused people, in case I have to defuse more cases of mistaken identity.

(Next person who misidentifies me), Ya Goof!