This is a true story Karen told me on my last visit to Pittsburgh. I thought it was so hilarious that I had to write it down. As she told me the story, I could see the irony of the way men sometimes act on an all too personal level. Just read on and you will see what I mean.
Karen’s boys are always involved in sports either through school or within the community. As it is difficult to find enough money to finance sports for kids, booster clubs will hold various fundraisers. 15 year old Nate’s baseball team boosters were organizing a spaghetti dinner/bake sale. Each family was asked to help work the spaghetti dinner as well as to donate baked goods for the bake sale. As Karen had planned to be out of town the day of the spaghetti dinner and the boys would be with their dad, she called Terry and asked if he would be able to work the dinner with Nate. She assured him she would do the baking for the bake sale and he would just have to pick the goodies up when he picked the boys up on Sunday morning. He and Nate could deliver them to the bake sale Sunday evening. He agreed.
Karen spent the day before the bake sale making peanut butter cup cookies and a delicious tray of caramel apple bars. She packaged and arranged everything in individual bags, set them in a low cardboard tray, covered the tray with clear wrap, and fearing her cats might find the goodies, placed everything inside the oven for safekeeping.
Before going to bed Saturday night, she told Nate, “The cookies are in the oven. When your Dad gets here, make sure you get them out and take them with you.” He replied “ok”. She texted Terry to remind him to take the baked goods when he picked up the boys. The next morning she also left a note taped to the front door that said, “Grab the cookies (in the oven) when you leave”. She left the house before the boys awoke confident that all was in order.
Monday, as she drove home from work Karen was thinking how good a piece of those apple caramel bars would taste. She had thrown some of the ends/duds of the caramel apple bars into a plastic baggie when she was packaging everything else up for the sale. As she walked into the kitchen to retrieve the baggie of apple caramel bar crusts she was puzzled by the fact that the baggie was gone, as was the baggie of overcooked peanut butter cup cookies. The boys had returned home earlier from school so she thought that maybe they had nabbed them and were upstairs snacking on them. She called up to the boys but they hadn’t seen any baggies. As she walked back toward the kitchen she began to feel an underlying dread – like that feeling you get when you know you’ve locked your keys in the car, or when you go on vacation and are pretty sure you left the coffeepot on. Sure enough when she reached down and pulled the oven door open… there, just as she had left them, was the tray of cookies.
She said she yelled for Nate who came running down stairs sure that his mom was seriously injured or something was terribly wrong. He stood there dumbfounded as she just pointed at the beautifully arranged baked goods resting in their protected spot. Unable to articulate the anger, confusion, and growing panic that she was feeling she said, “What exactly did you take to the bake sale Nate?” He said, “I took those two bags of cookies you had on the counter, why?” To say that Karen was mortified would be a vast understatement, all she kept saying was “no….no, no, no….” Nate, sensing her distress, tried to help by saying, “Mom, I’m pretty sure someone bought them because they weren’t there when the bake sale was over.” Karen hissed, “The only person who would have bought two bags of crumbs at a bake sale would be a strung-out junkie with the munchies!” Nate wandered away completely baffled as to why his normally sane mom had gone off the deep end.
I’m not going to tell you what Karen said to Terry on the phone when she called to ask how it was possible that after all of the years they were married, he could think that she would ever send a bag of cookie bits and a bag of gooey apple pieces which had congealed into a ball by the time it arrived (as reported by Nate), to a bake sale. He responded, “Well, I thought it was a little odd.” And to add insult to injury, Karen had been in contact with the chair of the bake sale prior to the event. She had emailed her what she was sending and also that Terry would be there in her place. The idea of what the women who were organizing the bake sale must have thought when Nate waltzed in and plopped two baggies of yuck on their lovely bake sale table….well, it was a few hours….ok maybe days…before Karen was able to see the humor in the situation. Once she had gained a bit of perspective she sent a quick email to the chair apologizing for the mistake and explaining what had happened. The chair responded back cordially, but Karen is pretty sure that the boosters club won’t be asking her to organize any bake sales any time soon. She figures that she’ll be relegated to clean-up duty for eternity, which might not be such a bad thing.
Disclaimer: I want to give credit to Karen for “cleaning up” and editing much of this story. I tried to write it with a personal perspective of how men function differently than women and she expertly conveyed my thoughts as I originally wrote them. As she told me the story, I could see myself…not listening or paying attention…making the same crazy mistake. From time to time, even though not the same scenario, I’m pretty sure I’ve been there, done that.