This week was Husband’s birthday, happening as it does every year eleven days after mine. I always knock myself out shopping for a great gift for him because one, he always gets me something terrific, and two, he’s really elusive to buy things for. I always think I get it right, but I’m consistently a little off.
Like I know he loves chocolate, so I’ll buy him Godiva dark because I know he prefers dark, but then I’ll find out later that when it comes to Godiva, he prefers the milk. If I squeeze my head really hard, I can call to mind a moment in time when he actually told me this, but I excuse myself with thinking that maybe the events in Darfur pushed that little tidbit to the rear. It means a great deal to him that I remember this kind of thing, and I always feel like I win points for buying the perfect blue linen shirt, but then get a deduction because it doesn’t have a chest pocket. I hesitate to ask what my overall average is because I think he’ll tell me.
Husband is always amazed by the things I recall, like the name of the wife of a guy he introduced me to a year ago when he can’t even remember the guy’s name. But then he’s astounded I don’t recall the name of a single teacher from when I was in elementary school. He can rattle his off like a Yankee lineup. It’s funny, too, because I had a happy childhood and loved school. What I recall are certain things various teachers did or said; I just can’t summon the names or faces that go with them.
For instance, I remember that an early grade school teacher of mine called my mother one day and told her I didn’t eat enough to live on. Teachers back then took turns monitoring the lunchroom, and apparently this one got alarmed after repeatedly watching me peel back the tin foil flaps on my daily lunch of little cantaloupe cubes and 2 bacon strips. Well, excuse me for being a picky eater. My mother hung up the phone humiliated after that call, and told me she was sending me with a chicken leg the next day. I promised her I’d puke.
At a job I had about ten years ago, I shared an office with a woman I became friendly with. One day she returned late from lunch, which was very unusual for her. She explained that a traffic incident had delayed her. She was stopped at an intersection near the office waiting for an older, female pedestrian to cross. The pedestrian waved her to go ahead, and then inexplicably forgot she did so and began to cross the street. She walked right into the front of my friend’s car and went straight to the ground.
My friend jumped out of her car and helped the woman up, both of them apologizing. A shop owner called the police who arrived in minutes, but the woman assured everyone she was fine. She refused an ambulance, and the police filled out their report and sent everyone on their way. My friend called the woman several times over the next week to check on her, but she insisted she wasn’t injured or even upset.
About a year after that, my friend left work and moved to a different state. She went right away to the Department of Motor Vehicles to fill out forms for her new driver’s license. The very friendly DMV guy in her new, laid back town asked her if she had any traffic convictions on her record. She proudly told him no. He asked if her insurance had ever been canceled. Again, no. After a few more questions, my friend leaned in and said confidently, “I haven’t had so much as a parking ticket.”
The DMV guy glanced at his computer screen and said, “Would the pedestrian you hit agree with that?”
My friend was stunned at how the entire incident had slipped her mind. She gave a little laugh and said, “You know, that’s a funny story.” And the DMV guy leaned back with his arms folded and looked at her like, tell me.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos offer images that Only Mean What You Want Them To
downtown crowd
price tag pileup
as good a number as any
