The Perfect Storm

The perfect storm struck my house yesterday evening. No wind. No rain. No thunder and lightening. This perfect storm had nothing to do with weather conditions. The weather yesterday was gorgeous. No, this perfect storm developed from a comedy of errors, memory lapses, oversights, ambiguities, omissions and just plain failure to communicate.

About a year ago, Macho Guy and I bought tickets to three dinner theater events at our local university club. These events begin at 5:00 p.m. with a four-course dinner at the club, and then the club buses us to the theater at 7:00 p.m. to get there in time for a 7:30 p.m. curtain. The first event was scheduled for October 10.

In previous years, the person in charge of the club’s dinner theaters always sent out email reminders a week before so members wouldn’t forget the dinner theater dates. A new person took over this year; she did not send out email reminders.

We didn’t have a 2013 calendar yet, so the dates of the dinner theaters didn’t make it onto a physical calendar that we normally keep on the wall behind our centralized communication center [tiny phone desk] in the kitchen. However, I dutifully entered the dates into my iPhone Calendar.

Flash back to when Macho Guy and I bought our iPhones. Firstborn recommended that we share an Apple ID because we could also share any apps either of us purchased and would not have to pay for them twice. We followed his advice and shared an Apple ID. Since that time, I learned that Apple recommends against sharing an Apple ID, and now I know why. Macho Guy and I also ended up sharing items we would rather not share, such as birthday reminders for my writer friends that also appeared on Macho Guy’s iPhone and iPad, and sports apps Macho Guy bought that also appeared on my iPhone and iPad. When I set all my devices to share and backup to the iCloud so I wouldn’t need to reenter data manually on each device, Macho Guy’s iPhone inherited all that input too. He whined and complained so much that I finally disabled iCloud. Big mistake. Half my contacts and reminders that were linked to the cloud disappeared and so did nearly all of my calendar entries. I had to enable iCloud again, but I noticed that a number of items were missing; many of the missing items were reminders and calendar entries. I reconstructed my missing data as best I could. Unfortunately, I could not remember everything. I did not remember the dinner theater dates.

Flash forward to yesterday. My critique partner didn’t feel well and had to cancel our afternoon meeting, so I changed into my comfy writing garb (a “write your heart out” T-shirt and baggy sweat pants) and plugged away at the next chapter of my science fiction romance epic. Macho Guy returned home early from his temporary gig and changed into his lounging around the house garb and proceeded to read the newspaper. Neither of us were dressed up for a night on the town. We were dressed down for a nice, quiet, uneventful evening at home. In actuality, we were thirty minutes from Situation Normal All Fouled Up. [I believe soldiers use a different F word for their version of SNAFU.]

At about 4:45 p.m., I received a very ambiguous call on my iPhone from a friend of ours. He urged me to tell Macho Guy not to take the usual route because of the homecoming traffic.

Huh? What homecoming traffic? What usual route? What’s going on?

He said they were on their way and asked if we were.

What? On the way where? I had no idea what he was talking about, but I thought maybe he’d explain so I said, “No.”

He asked if I heard from another couple we knew.

Why is he asking me about them? Again, I said, “No.”

He said he was five minutes away, said he’d see me later and hung up before I could ask what he was talking about.

Five minutes away from where? Our house? What the hell?

I went to tell Macho Guy about the freaky phone call. Before I could, he started asking me questions about something else and I clean forgot about the phone call.

At 5:45 pm, while Macho Guy and I were getting ready for our weekly wine and cheese date night, the phone rang and I answered. A staff member from the local university club was on the line.

CLUB LADY: Are you planning to use your dinner theater tickets tonight?

ME: [stunned] Dinner theater? We signed up for that?

CLUB LADY: Yes.

ME: It’s tonight?

CLUB LADY: Yes.

ME: It’s not on our calendar.

ME: [Aside to Macho Guy] The first dinner theater is tonight! She wants to know if we’ll be there.

MACHO GUY: [Looks at the clock; it is now 5:50 p.m.] We’d have to leave here by six. I can be ready to go in ten minutes, can you?

[We will pause here until the people who know me well are able to stop laughing.]

Did Macho Guy seriously expect me, the slowest moving human on the face of the earth, to be ready in ten minutes? Was he mad? Was he joking? Was he dreaming?

ME: [Aside to Macho Guy, thinking of how much it would cost us to blow off those dinner theater tickets.] I can do it.

ME: [To Club Lady] We’ll be there.

Was I mad? Was I joking? Was I dreaming?

I put all the food away in a flash. I dashed to our bedroom, stripping on the way. I yanked underwear and a dressy T-shirt out of my dresser, slacks and a cardigan from the closet and threw them on the bed. I splashed my face, dried it and smoothed on tinted moisturizer, brow pencil and lip gloss—all the makeup I figured I had time for. I brushed my hair, applied a shaping wax to keep it out of my eyes, slipped into my underwear, clothes and shoes, draped a couple of flashy chains around my neck, grabbed my purse and ran for the door. I did it all in ten minutes. Macho Guy now expects me to do it all the time. Bummer.

We arrived at the club at 6:20 p.m., an hour and twenty minutes late, and were greeted by our friends with a round of applause and a tremendous amount of teasing. When Macho Guy told them I was ready to go in ten minutes, it sent shock waves around the table and their jaws all dropped in unison. Can’t hardly blame them given my reputation for never being on time.

We all did a postmortem on our late arrival while Macho Guy and I wolfed down our dinners. I told the friend who called that he never mentioned the club or the dinner theater, and I had no clue why he called or what he was talking about. The couple who rode with us to the last dinner theater didn’t call to see if we wanted to ride with them this time because they were running fifteen minutes late and they knew how important it is to Macho Guy to be on time. Another couple we sometimes ride with didn’t call this time around because they thought we’d ride with the other couple. I mentioned not getting an email reminder from the club; no one else did either. I also told the gang about our iPhone woes and losing my reminders and calendar entries and how the dinner theater never made it onto our 2013 calendar once we had one.

We all agreed that those separate occurrences taken together created a perfect storm that almost caused us to miss a very enjoyable evening out with our friends. Fortunately, we weathered that storm, mainly because I somehow managed to channel the spirit of a quick-change artist. I can’t help wondering if I’ll ever be able to do it again. What do you think?