Skip to main content

Blogging Buffet: E is for Embarrassing Moments

The theme of my A to Z Challenge posts this year is "Blogging Buffet." In celebration of recently posting my 1000th blog post, I am revisiting posts from the past.  This post originally published on October 19, 2012.


I recently made a doozy of a mistake--the kind of mistake that fills up the "All in a Day's Work" section of the Reader's Digest; the kind of mistake that we all smugly laugh about because we would never do something so stupid; the kind of mistake that becomes a legendary family tale, to be retold and passed down through the ages. 

And no, I'm not going to tell you just yet.  First, I want to tell you another funny story:

The Day My Husband Met My Parents

I met John at Brigham Young University, and we quickly fell in love and decided to get married.  As BYU is 800+ miles from my hometown, my parents did not meet John until the week before our wedding.

After driving for many hours from Utah, we arrived at my parents' house.  It is nestled into a hill in the countryside, surrounded by beautiful trees and wildlife.  Greenhouses attach to the front of the house, with sliding glass doors providing access to the living quarters.  The greenhouses have vents to provide needed ventilation and cooling.

My parents and siblings excitedly greeted us as we pulled up to the house.  We all went inside, and John started answering questions.  The first words out of my brother's mouth were, "Are you going to get a dog?  Kristi loves dogs."  Sometime in the midst of the conversation--swoop, swoop--a bat flew by, seemingly out of nowhere.  Up jumped my dad and John, and they spent the next little while shooing the errant creature back to the great outdoors. 

Afterwards, my mom explained to her future son-in-law that we had never before had a bat come into the house.  (Presumably it came in through the vents in the greenhouse.)  My dad was impressed with John's good-natured, solve-the-problem demeanor.  If John wondered at all about what he was getting into by marrying me, he didn't let on. 

Fortunately, he still takes life with me in stride. 

Yesterday, John asked me to please check his personal e-mail box, and forward an expected message to his work e-mail address.  I dutifully agreed.  I even changed the subject line, as the particular e-mail contained a new job offer, and John had not given notice to his current boss yet.  Forgetting that I was signed in to his account, I forwarded the e-mail to john._______@______.com.  As soon as I hit "send," I received confirmation:  "Message sent to John _______."  The only problem was, the last name displayed was not my husband's last name! 

In tears, I quickly called my husband and announced, "I did something really bad!" 

"What did you do?" 

"I sent the e-mail to the wrong John!"

"Which John did you send it to?" 

"John ______" 

"Oh, my boss.  It's OK.  Don't worry."  I was glad he seemed so non-plussed, but I was still crying when I hung up.

A little while later I got an e-mail:

Kristi,If you knew John ________, you’d know that everything will be just fine. I just sent him an e-mail that said:-----------------------------John,I would like a few minutes to talk with you as soon as you get a chance.A little while ago, my wife forwarded you an e-mail from my home account (oops). Hopefully you haven’t opened it yet. If you haven’t, please don’t open it. If you have, then you can probably guess what I want to talk about.Thanks,John-----------------------------So, the only risks are:1)      He finds out about my news a few minutes earlier than I intended2)     He has a funny story to tell his wife when he gets home3)    He thinks you love him (depending on what you wrote)All is well,Love,John

As it turned out, John the boss was in meetings all day and didn't even see the e-mail, so my husband was able to be the one to break the news to him. 

And I've got a new tale to add to my collection of "Stupid Things I've Done While Trying to Be Helpful" stories.


How about you?  Any funny stories that didn't seem so funny at the time? 

 photo visiting2_zps6d4521f3.jpg

 photo ThankfulThought4_zps7d9599c2.jpg
Thanks to John, the most patient, wonderful husband ever.

 photo signature3_zps16be6bca.jpg


Pin It

Comments

  1. I remember this one! Such a good story!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. John told me today I could have just titled this "E is for E-mail."

      Delete
  2. I remember this story too and I know it's something I could have done...
    Embarrassing Emails... there are far worse things, aren't there?.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, yes, but it didn't seem so at the time! :-)

      Delete
  3. Running gives me the runs, even if I am running with the high school team far away from any bathrooms or bushes. Yeah, it was bad.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was thinking EEK would have been a good title as well.
    Val from My Virtual Vineyard

    ReplyDelete
  5. I remember this story from the first time and the love that you and John have is really wonderful! As for embarrassing things that I have done -- too many to count! (or admit to!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Life has a way of keeping me humble, that's for sure! :-)

      Delete
  6. I know I'm the one who says there's no backsies, but there really should be one for sending ANYTHING electronically!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Conversations are so much nicer when more than one person does the talking. :-) Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts; I'd love to hear from you!

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Things of Thankful: Live from Oregon, part 2

stock photo of old computer monitor When I was 10 or 11, I remember sitting next to my dad in our living room and reading computer code to him as he entered it into an Apple computer. We would finish the exercise and he would hit enter (or was it "run"?) and wait expectantly for the green type to appear on the screen. If we were lucky, the whole conversation would occur. Most often, there would be an error either in my dictation of the code, or in the typing of the code. We would then go painstakingly back through the lines, character by character, to find and correct the error. After what seemed like hours (and might have been), we would succeed and the computer would finally run the entire program. It was magical! My dad designed and built an earth-sheltered, passive solar home decades before solar panels were commonplace. He also was on a 9-month waiting list for a Prius, when hybrids were not seen on every street.  While my dad is definitely on the cutting edge of technol...

Monday Mentions: Equate Crutches

Have you ever needed crutches? I hadn't, until a week ago.  I'm pretty sure I strained a muscle while running a half-marathon.  (That sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? I'm not actually that cool; the last time I strained a muscle it was from carrying too many shopping bags at once.) In any case, I found myself in need of some crutches. I sent my husband to the store to get some. Photo: A pair of crutches leans against a wall  Not that crutches are all that complex, but because I hadn't used any before, I wondered if I could figure out how to adjust them to fit me properly. I shouldn't have worried. John came home from Walmart with their generic store brand of crutches, complete with instructions. First, I needed to take out a long bolt that went through the hand grip. Then I needed to find my height range, push down two metal pieces, and slide the crutches until the little metal pieces came up in the hole near my height range. (Having two people for this...

What a Wonderful World! (An #AtoZChallenge Post): Z is for Zion National Park

  Visitor Center sign in Zion National Park My husband recently re-retired, and we are front-loading travel. My #AtoZChallenge posts this year will explore our adventures--some pre-retirement, some post. Today's location: Zion National Park in Utah.  Zion is a bit of a shibboleth. People from outside of Utah (or those who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) tend to pronounce Zion as "ZIE-on." Locals (or tourists who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) use more of a schwa sound, pronouncing Zion to rhyme with lion. However you choose to pronounce it, it is an amazing, beautiful national park and has some amazing hikes. The last time my husband and I visited Zion National Park, we entered from the east, and traveled through the mile-long Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel. It is an engineering marvel, completed in the 1920s. Before we passed through the tunnel, though, we spotted a group of bighorn sheep, including some babies...