When you assume…

Yesterday I was rushing home from work in order to pick up Cheryl to go to a meeting with a local daycare provider. Trang, our friendly neighbour (Henry’s wife for those following at home), had graciously offered to babysit Kayla for this outing.

The traffic was bad… really bad, so although I gave myself an hour to get home, the time was tight. I was sitting at a standstill on the I-90 when I noticed a text message pop up…. My phone contacts had recently been deleted accidentally by a friend (another long story), so although the number did not register I assumed it was someone that typically called me. It read “Henry and I are on the connector right in front of you” (The connector is a Microsoft sponsored bus that helps Microsoft employees get to and from work from various neighbourhoods). Now, the connector takes a much longer time to get to my house than I would driving directly, so I assumed this was Trang messaging me to tell me that she and Henry were going to be late. Bummer!

I called Cheryl to figure out how bad it would be if we were late. Cheryl really wanted to be on time for the daycare, and was concerned that if we took Kayla we would not be able to get her to sleep easily when we returned, so I decided I was going to go the distance to try and get Henry and Trang to my place on time. The connector takes many stops between the I-90 and home, so I figured the best bet would be to follow the connector, tell Henry and Trang to get off at the first connector stop, pick them up, and drive them directly the rest of the way myself to minimize the chance we would be late.

Time was of the essence because I was skirting the bounds of timeliness as it was, so I wanted to make sure they got off at the first stop. I called Henry’s number, and there was no answer, I called again… No answer. I decided to call the “unknown” number that had texted me, and a male voice answered… “Can you guys get off at this stop?” I asked abruptly…. The bus was just slowing down to the first stop, so I did not have a lot of time for explanation… The voice seemed somewhat surprised at the request, but suggested that they would go wake up Henry to see if they could.

I was somewhat confused because the voice was male, and it wasn’t Henry… It was Max – another friend who lives near my place. All of a sudden I realized I had messed up. I had somehow assume he was Trang… And now I didn’t know what was happening. I had passed the bus just then because I assumed that Max had not been able to convince Henry to get off the bus on such short notice, but I got another call from Max 30 seconds later “Hey man, Henry’s off the bus”. I was now not sure what was going on… But now I was going to be late for sure, and I didn’t want Henry to have to walk home because I somehow forced him off the bus for no obvious reason.

I turned the car around, and had to wait at a busy intersection to get back to where the bus was, all the while frustrated that I was going to be late, and it was now my fault for assuming Max was Trang. I eventually got through the intersection, but then couldn’t see Henry anywhere. I then realized he wasn’t answering his phone earlier, he might not have his phone, and I figured it might take me a while to find him - now I was surely going to be late.

Eventually I saw Henry, but he was with Max - boy had this gotten out of control. I really didn’t want Max to have to get out at this stop, miles from his house. I also didn’t have time to drive Max home – I was late, but this was my fault again, so now what?

I pulled over and told them to get in, Henry and Max were discussing who would sit in the front seat while Trang was no doubt hanging out at my place with Cheryl, both wondering where I was. Cheryl most likely confused as to why Trang made it before me. Henry was asking me why he was hanging out at a random connector stop, and Max decided he wasn’t going to ride with me, he had no idea why he had pulled Henry off the bus, but he was walking home.

To top it off, the car I was driving was not the car that Max had originally seen when he sent me that original text message. He thought I was in my car, but I was in Cheryl’s Corolla – so not only was it a co-incidence that he messaged me the week after my phone was wiped, with Henry’s name, at a time I was heading home to meet Trang and Cheryl - causing me to believe he was Trang, but he actually hadn’t even seen me in my car to begin with, so it was just pure co-incidence I happened to be beside that exact same connector. Henry was sleeping in the connector, so he didn’t answer his phone to clear things up, and I was in a rush, so I didn’t have time to explain what was going on to Max before Henry was woken up, and thrown out into the street.

At least the daycare discussion went well – we got there with one minute to spare.