(this post concept brought to you by the submissions page. Do feel free to submit your own stories!)
There’s at least one situation that trumps people not being home for their appointment. And that’s people being home, and having forgotten about the appointment and invited friends for dinner.
We google-mapped the location, so that meant we had to leave an extra 5 minutes for misreading the directions. But we nailed it, arriving a solid 10 minutes early. Our first clue that something was amiss was that there were 4 cars in the driveway, and one along the street in front of the house. We drove past the house, and checked the address in the notes we had scratched on the legal pad the night before. Yep, house 104. The one with company over. We culdesac-ed it and waited for about 3 minutes just out of sight of the house.
Assuming the best required that we say “you know, maybe they decided to turn our one-on-one appointment into an impromptu small dinner, and we’ll get to present our ministry to a lot of folks.” So we pulled in behind the car parked on the street, and made our way onto the front walk.
Doorbell. Muffled conversation. Front blinds at eye-level popping open for about two seconds. More muffled conversation.
The door opened, and we were welcomed in with slightly wider eyes than normal. And I know from watching the intro to Lie To Me on Fox (all new Monday, 9/8 Central–and I am still not receiving any compensation for these shout-outs) that wider eyes than usual indicates surprise, or the suppression of surprise. I also know this from my senior year in high school, when I had an afro, and people would make a similar “I’m not surprised” face upon meeting me, which betrayed their true feelings.
Indeed they were surprised, and like John Fox deciding who to put in at Quarterback for the Panthers, they scrambled around picking up non-missionary appropriate things laying around the house (Field and Stream Magazine, a Beat Dook Sweatshirt, and three cans of Slim Jims–you can expect a post about this concept coming soon) while trying to decide how best to proceed.
Being one who almost always will opt for the most awkward route through any conversation, I asked innocently “Did you guys remember we were coming over?” And all of the eyes in the room dropped. “No” came the reply.
“Oh it’s no problem, we don’t mean to intrude, we can reschedule.”
“No, stick around, here, have a glass of wine.”
This is just getting better and better. “OK, we’ll stick around for one glass, but we don’t want to be a bother.”
And thus ends the tale of the time we awkwardly drank wine on what was supposed to be a missionary support appointment. And they never answered their phone again.
How about you? Ever crash a party unintentionally? If not, feel free to make up a story in the comments.