Dumdum

Sometimes you are what you are and you have to tell it like it is. Around lunchtime today I had a friend drop off some materials I needed for the Blue and Gold banquet coming up and she asked if I had sick kids or something. I thought that was a weird thing to ask and I said, "No, uh, why...?" Then she asks if I forgot about the bookclub at a friend's house. I didn't forget at all. I was going to be there--only at 7pm tonight instead of 10am this morning. I keep playing out in my mind how that would have gone...(me)"Hi, am I the first one here?" (my friend) "Uh, no, you dumdum, bookclub was this morning"...*sigh*...This recalls to my mind some other dumdum episodes in my life...As a teenager I was asked to give a talk on the prophet Wilford Woodruff. This was in a time before the internet, computers, etc. so I had to write it on real paper with an actual pen. It is annoying to write Wilford Woodruff over and over and over so I abbreviated it to W.W. and according to my mother (when I asked her how I did), it was ok, except the whole talk was about Woodrow Wilson. Oops. Then there was the time in Alaska when Hannah was very little and had managed to destroy the tension pin in my grandmother's sewing machine. I figured it was time to get a new machine anyway (not because I sew, but because all my friends have them) so I went to an actual sewing-machine store. I walk in and see some signs that say "Baby Lock" and I'm thinking--how awesome that someone finally realized how hard it is to sew with a baby crawling around on the table and they've built this "baby lock" feature. So I start asking this poor sewing-machine man about this "baby lock".

(Me)"Where is the baby lock?"

(poor man) "Right here, ma'am."

(Me, looking at the maching failing to see how it has been baby-proofed) "But how does the baby lock work?"

(poor man goes into lengthy description of how to work a sewing maching)

(Me) "Yeah...but what about the baby-lock thing?"

And back and forth it went...

I'm not sure how long it took me to realize BABY LOCK is a brand, not a feature nor how long it took the guy to realize he was dealing with a class A dumdum. I actually bought a Baby Lock-brand sewing machine there just so I could always remember this story. I'm sure there is more but I'm too dumdum to remember right now. :-)