Here is a timely example of what happens when people are not paying
attention to the information being communicated to them.
First of all, some things are
super consistent even if there is room for improvement. With me, it is about
consistently not answering my phone when Craigley and I are outside. He has
complained about it many times. In fact, he likes to narrate a story about how
we were at the border coming back from the States, and Craigley was answering
questions the Customs officer was asking. In the middle of it all, my phone
started ringing and I was totally oblivious to it as I was aptly listening to
the back and forth between Craigley and the officer. I did not pay attention to
the ringing even when both of them stopped talking and looked at me! That's
when Craigley and the guy (not an officer anymore) had a moment. They both
smiled at each other like 2 men who belong in a support group where wives
ignore calls. Craigley loves to share this story with all men who are also
husbands. It somehow strengthens their
male bonding.
On a positive note, I always remind Craigley that that particular border
crossing was short and sweet thanks mainly to me!
Back to the Present…
Last Friday was a busy day for me and it was also a cold day. Craigley
was home early and he insisted on driving me for pickup. I should have been
super insistent about walking, but I wasn't and so there is a story to share.
We have an issue with the
Parking Lot at Hans' school. There is a plan to close it at pickup time. I am
all for it and Craigley, who wasn't aware till that point in time, was against
it. We were arguing about the pros and cons of it all and Craigley had to park
the car on one of the streets. It just worked out that I needed to stay a bit
to hand over some stuff to my friends and Craigley decided to get Hans and walk
over to the car and wait for me there. Literally, 5 minutes later, I made my
way to the car and it wasn't there! That was when I decided to check my phone
and surely enough there was a missed call from Craigley. So, I called him and
found out that he had moved the car into the Parking Lot. And he decided the car
is faster than me so they will catch up to me in no time. Meanwhile, some parents were wondering why I was at school without Hans
and if I needed a ride. It did look a little strange - me walking back home
without my child.
Long story short…I walked all
the way home and found Craigley fuming in the car in the driveway. I was like
my phone died in the cold and there was no way for me to communicate with him. And this was the information I had recently
communicated to Craigley - that my phone simply died on me on 2 occasions last
month as I was outside in extremely cold temperatures. Somehow this fact was
forgotten.
You know how many times I called you and you didn't answer your phone?!
I was like my phone died on me.
Why do things only happen to you?!
I wanted to say why the heck did you move the car in the
first place?!
I did not. Instead I asked
Hans if he provided guidance to his dad in any way.
Hans and I are creatures of habit and we take the same route back home
day in and day out for the last 5 and a half school years with very rare
exceptions. If they had followed that route, they would have found me. But
Craigley took another route and completely missed me.
When I asked Hans why he did
not tell his dad which way to go, he simply stated that he wanted to stay out
of it all! I guess that was a wise
decision.
The only real reason for
writing this post is to share a situation where so much angst could have been
avoided if both parties had not tried to accommodate each other in any way. It
could have also helped if a certain he
had paid a little attention to a certain she
who loves to communicate and who is rather reliable with her choices.
It is sad when we set out to help someone and end up making that same
someone responsible for ruining it all since it didn't work out the way we
planned it.
Hope this narrative makes sense on some level. If the purpose of it is
lost in translation, then simply chalk it up to a regular comedy of errors!
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