Someone tried to make off with my stringy faded 30 year old beach towel at the pool tonight. It was so odd. She grabbed it and started drying off and I was all "Honey, that's my towel." She just sort of looked at me blankly and asked what to do with it. "Uh, hang it back up?" On the hook? "Yeah, that works for me."

IDEK.

And I hated having to dry off with a damp chloriney towel someone else had used. Uhg.

Could she have spaced and mistaken it for hers? I embarassed myself years ago by grabbing the wrong shopping cart in the market, and I did not have water in my eyes. Or do you think she just grabbed a random towel hoping the owner would not be around?

No other towel in the entire pool area looked like it. I don't even know, her reaction was just so...not flustered, not concerned, as if she was waiting for me to give her permission to keep using it. The Y is often good for seeing the full spectrum of human behaviors...

Could she have spaced and mistaken it for hers? I embarassed myself years ago by grabbing the wrong shopping cart in the market, and I did not have water in my eyes. Or do you think she just grabbed a random towel hoping the owner would not be around?

Way back when I was in high school, my mother went shopping one day. Back then, my parents owned a Volvo station wagon, which had a lot of room for groceries. She left the supermarket with a full cart, found the Volvo, opened the back and started loading in the shopping bags. When she looked up, she saw two thoroughly unfamiliar schoolchildren sitting in the back seat and watching her with expressions of amazement and some small concern. It quickly dawned on her that this was not in fact our Volvo. She removed the shopping bags, apologising profusely, and explained "My car looks exactly like this one."

It was only when she got back to our car that she remembered the Volvo was in for a service that day, and she'd driven our other car. Thus it was that she drove slowly out of the parking lot, hunched in the front seat of a Mitsubishi Colt hatchback, straight past the unwavering attention of two increasingly incredulous schoolboys.

other than not owning a Volvo, I can totally see myself doing something like that. Years ago I moved from one apartment building to another which had a very similar layout. By coincidence I was in the same corner in the new building that I had been in the old building, but one floor lower.

I moved in on a Sunday, and the following day at work was a long work day. I got home around 9PM. Yeah, you guessed - I tried to enter one floor up, and fumbled with the door for about at least a minute before I realized I was on the wrong floor. The next day my upstairs neighbor was telling everybody about the unsuccessful burglary attempt that scared her the night before. She also went on about her gun, and how she'd have shot the son-of-a-bitch if he'd gotten in, so I chose not to confess my error.

I but totally believe if that if your instinct is that she did it on purpose you are probably right. Just that some people are amazingly klutzy in ways other than bumping into things, and Unfortunately I know this first hand.

Someone just around the corner just bought a Mazda2. In black. Identical to mine. At least with the remote entry, you'd know something was up before breaking a key in the lock?

So my neighbor doesn't have to have surgery for her spine (broken in 3 places) but definitely can't work until the new year. I really, really, really hope she's not contract and has short-term disability. (She's a nurse and recently moved from CVICU to a more 9-5 of home healthcare nurse.) I do know now that the guy that hit her? Unlicensed and uninsured. And the bar she moonlights at is doing a tip-jar fundraiser in a couple weeks, which I hope to go to.

And I hated having to dry off with a damp chloriney towel someone else had used. Uhg.

That really is the worst part. Do you think she just went all deer-in-the-headlights when she realized her mistake? My kids do that. Spill a glass of milk and then... stare at it, then stare some more, then look at me, then stare again. Until I point out that said kid should go get a rag and clean it up.

Someone just around the corner just bought a Mazda2. In black. Identical to mine. At least with the remote entry, you'd know something was up before breaking a key in the lock?

Yes.

Yeah, you would. Or at the very beginning of trying the lock. Like the first five seconds.

Do you think she just went all deer-in-the-headlights when she realized her mistake? My kids do that. Spill a glass of milk and then... stare at it, then stare some more, then look at me, then stare again. Until I point out that said kid should go get a rag and clean it up.

I try not to but I've made those mistakes. Not often but it's happened. *Ugh*