1002 ways to goof up (continued)

454. Wear you only red clothing to work on the day before Valentine's Day.
453. Show up to pick up your car-pool buddy on the day that he's supposed to drive.
452. Forget to dim your lights.
451. Present your library card to the cashier instead of your credit card.
450. Forget your lunch money.
449. Forget your lunch.
448. Make lunch not only for tomorrow, but also for the next day and then realize that you did the same thing the day before, so now you're two lunches ahead but in danger of something getting soggy or stale or hard or ...
447. Fiddle with your portable music player or radio every which way you can think but fail to get sound, and then realize that you haven't plugged in your earphone jack.
446. Open the chips from the bottom.
445. Or the cereal.
444. Stay on hold on the phone for service so long that you need to eat a sandwich, then take a big bite so that you're unable to answer when the rep come back on, and she hangs up on you.
443. Cram for a test that turns out to be next week.
442. Mistakenly shut down a projector that you're trying to start up.

What we have here is a failure to communicate

Ethan called to be picked up from a friend's.

I rolled up. He got in.

Me (cranky): We didn't know you were here, you know.

Ethan: I called your cell phone and mom's and the house.

Me: (silent, thinking: Shoot, the kid did his duty.)

Later in the evening, my cell phone screen said there was a message. It's a pain to check voice mails on my phone, and I figured that the message must be from Ethan, so I ignored it.

This morning, when I drove up to pick up my carpool buddy, he came out dressed except for bare feet.

"I left you a message last night. I have to drive separately today because ... " Well, he just needed to.

Ethan hadn't said that he'd left a message, come to think of it. I just assumed that.

No big deal, but the point is: I gotta get better at checking my messages, and I gotta get worse at assuming.

Furthermore: Keith, Ya Goof!