Skip to main content

Blind Spot

You know how some people always seem to have trouble with certain tasks? It's not even a matter of competence, I've seen really, really talented people fail at mundane tasks on a consistent basis. I've also seen incompetent people fail at similar tasks, too, so it really isn't a function of intelligence, education, or darn near anything you can think of. People are just good at different things.

Anyhow, for whatever reason, I've always been bad at wedding gifts. Now, if I'm going to a wedding, I care about the people so I will happily get them a gift. I want them to be happy, and I want to help them celebrate. But for whatever reason, I always forget about the gift until the last minute. I know full well that I am going to get the couple a gift, and I want to get them something nice. Still, I always seem to forget to do this in advance.I'd like to think this isn't a result of me being an idiot (though that's always up for interpretation), but at this point, it's happened often enough that I realize that it's a weakness. I've gotten a little better about it over time, but still, it's slightly problematic.

So where's the humor in all this, you ask? I was talking to a buddy at a wedding recently, and he said something along the lines of, "yeah, I only looked at the website to RSVP and buy a gift, and then I ..." That's when it hit me: I could easily get the gift at the same time as I commit to going to the wedding. It's such a simple solution that it had that ring of truth to it, and I probably had one of those looks on my face that reflected a sudden moment of realization. Put it this way: I had the sudden to urge to facepalm myself for all of the times in the past when I've screwed this up. He didn't make fun of me, but I suspect that it was more out of sheer kindness than anything else.

Still, I'll gladly trade that moment of embarrassment for my newfound knowledge. I'm going to be awesome at this whole gift-giving thing from now on.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Waiting for the Suck

I've mentioned it before, but I like to watch some Netflix while I do the dishes . I don't remember when I started the practice, but it's become a routine at this point. It gives me something to focus on while I do chores, and it makes the whole experience more enjoyable. All in all, it seems like a good idea to me. Now, I know that my screen time is limited. I'm certainly not going to wash dishes for two hours, so I can't watch an entire movie in one go. Heck, half the time, I can't even watch half of a movie in a single session. Ultimately, that drives my viewing preferences, so that I tend to favor episodic shows. Basically, that's how I watch some show or another: one dishwashing session at a time. Recently, that's been the Star Trek: Enterprise show. I never watched it when it first came out on television, so this is my chance to see the whole series. As with many series, there are some good episodes and some not-so-good episodes. Still, it's a...

The Joys of Coding

I normally don't blog about what I do (I'm a software developer), because 1) I've already got a work blog that's more suited for that, and 2) I'm a software developer, so most of the time it's not amusing. Sure, I find it interesting, and I learn things every day. However, unless you already lean towards Computer Science, it's not going to be very amusing to you. So, for the sake of keeping my audience (all 4 of them) happy, I stay away. Today, I'm going to break that rule, because my work actually did cause mild amusement. So, without further ado ... I've got a deadline coming up fairly soon, so I've been coding away for the last few days. It's not busy enough where I'm stressing about it, but let's just say it's a little easier to concentrate on my work these days. In it of itself, that's not news-worthy, but because I've been more productive lately, I've also been generating more working code lately. That...

An Excursion: Getting Home

So, in the ongoing saga that I have been writing about the last few weeks, a perfect storm of random occurrences led me to taking a trip to the office. Once there, I went about my day, but leaving led me to wander through a mine field of geese and goose droppings . Incidentally, I also happened to mention this to my coworkers, and one of them introduced me to the nickname that Canadian geese sometimes go by: the " cobra chicken ." All in all, that one day led to much hilarity. Still, at this point in our tale, I wasn't home yet. The Mild Wife was out and about that day, so we had agreed to carpool. I was going to hop on the bus, and she would pick me up from a BART station. We've actually done this a bunch, and it had become my go-to means of transportation before the pandemic started. It saved me from having to deal with rush hour traffic, so I was actually a big fan of this process. I expected far less traffic on this day, but even so, it was a sound plan so that...