Relative Something

Yesterday morning, Cyndie and I were preparing to get together with her folks for brunch, to hear stories about their recent cruise in the vicinity of Turkey. I simply followed Cyndie’s direction that she was cooking at our home and we would bring food over to their house. We loaded up the car and headed out just about 15 minutes behind schedule. When we reached the street where they live, I slowed down to let an oncoming car pass before I drove out and around a man walking with a dog, just a bit into my lane. With my primary attention on the pedestrian, I made only a brief glance to the passing car. The image that flashed in my mind was of Cyndie’s dad’s hair. A quick analysis of the car being red, with a black roof, and a passenger in the front, had me asking Cyndie if that was her dad that just passed us. She hadn’t noticed.

We pulled into their driveway and Cyndie hopped out to check their front door. All locked up! Nobody home. That pretty much confirmed it was them I saw driving away. Seems they were headed to our house for brunch. We turned around and high-tailed it back home. Cyndie was pretty upset over the miscommunication, but in the end, we all seemed able to frame it as humorous and not a critical failure. We did try to work back to discover where the confusion arose, but devoid any concrete evidence to the contrary, the general consensus was that neither Cyndie, nor her father, ever explicitly stated a planned location. Instead, each proceeded based on the perceptions they had in each of their own minds; Cyndie, of going to her parent’s house and her dad, of coming to ours.

It was a classic opportunity for individuals to allow situational circumstance to upset them and bring about a range of reactions with the potential to spiral into all manner of angst. None of us fell for it. We just acknowledged that it happened, laughed about it, and enjoyed a wonderful brunch of catching up on stories from their trip.