The wrong place

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There’s a story (which may or may not be true) going around in the popular press about an old woman in hospital with Alzheimer’s, who was discharged and taken home in an ambulance. The ambulance driver and assistant rang the bell and it was answered by an old bloke, apparently doo-lally, who let them in and carry her upstairs to put her to bed. Some time later, the old lady’s son was going frantic at the hospital – ‘Where’s my mother? She was supposed to be discharged today.’ ‘We’ve taken her home.’ They show him the details and he says, ‘that’s where she used to live!’

So off they go and the old guy’s still downstairs and the old lady’s still up in bed, asleep.

This got us talking over dinner last night. Our friend used to be an electrician for Cardiff City and, when he was a young apprentice, went to a house to do a job. He was waiting ages for his boss, so the people there gave him a cup of tea. He sat by the window to drink it and saw his guvnor’s van four doors down the road! He can’t remember what he said to the people, or even whether he finished his tea.

His father took him out one day and, while out, they went to a fish and chips shop, got lunch and took it back to his Dad’s car to eat. “Who’s been in my car? It’s trashed! Look someone’s ripped these wires out the dashboard!” Well they ate their fish and chips and a couple of blokes came along. ‘What you doing in my car?’

My wife did that in the Safari Hotel, Windhoek, car park. She parked her hire car, went in to get something from her room, took it back out to the car and couldn’t get the boot (trunk) open, no matter how she tried. And there’s this big black guy standing behind her, watching, and it was his car.

I can’t remember doing anything like that but I saw someone, with a jazz connection, doing it. I was up at Parliament for some debate in late 1993. My colleagues and I were waiting in the corridor behind the Speakers’ Chair (where officials go in to the chamber) and Kenneth Clarke (recently promoted from Home Secretary to Chancellor of the Exchequer) came around the corner, said hello politely, exchanged a word or two with the doorman, and went off up another corridor. A couple of minutes later he was back, looking embarrassed and said to the doorman, ‘I went to the Home Sec’s room,’ then headed off along yet another corridor.

These people run the country J

Got any stories?

MG

[erwbol]

I've tried to open my neighbour's front door several times (and, no, I wasn't drunk). Nobody noticed.

[JSngry]

Inexplicably got one hotel name confused with another and spent 30 minutes in a ballroom thinking that, gee, there sure are a lot of subs tonight. Then the leader showed up and the light bulb went off. Fortunately the other hotel was just a few miles away and I was still running early, but not nearly as early as I had been.

That's a big part of why I don't like showing up too early any more, you're more likely to go to the wrong place if you have too much lead time. Focus is the key to being correct, and urgency drives focus.