Mistaken Identity

I know she didn't mean anything by it. They were simply honest mistakes, which I'm sure the woman doing the readings at Mass that one Sunday didn't even realize she was doing. By the same token, it was all very, very distracting.

The readings involved the apostles Paul and Barnabas travelling around Asia Minor spreading the Gospel. That's all well and good. But the reader kept saying it was Paul and Barabbas.

Barabbas of course is who the crowd demanded rather than Jesus when Pontius Pilate was trying to appease their wrath immediately prior to the Crucifixion. 

I cannot begin to tell you the amount of personal discipline it took me, who was suddenly becoming a giggling preteen, to keep his cool The woman would say, Paul and Barabbas, and I would sit in the pew having to bite my tongue to not laugh. Then she said again, Paul and Barabbas, and I thought, of course, Barnabas. It's Barnabas, dear woman. Barnabas.

Ten seconds later she revealed that Paul and Barabbas were preaching in Antioch and Cappadocia. And I would have to stifle a laugh. Again.

There weren't many people in that large Church and let me tell you, a quick stifled laugh which sounded like a painful stifled sneeze rather echoes under such circumstances. I just know a couple folks turned around to find the source of the sound which might have been a startled animal but was rather an old man trying desperately not to regress to 11. Of course I then had to hear one more time about the good works of Paul and Barabbas. 

I was squinting my eyes shut and holding my hand over my mouth by that point. Then I began to lurch towards the opposite impulse of laughing out loud. I wanted to stand up and shout, "Paul and Barnabas! It's Paul and Barnabas for crying out loud!" 

Thankfully the organ began playing. The child in me finally left. Or at least his guffaws were drowned out.

Misreading Dials and Other Nonsense

Yesterday at work I was finishing a repair. Specifically, I was reinstalling a pulley on a motor. But darn it all, I couldn't find the set screw which was necessary to secure the pulley to the motor shaft. I finally gave up and got another screw, which promptly would not start at the threaded place designed especially for it. 

It wouldn't start because the original set screw was in the way. It had already been started. By me. How am I supposed to find things when they're already where they should be?

As if that wasn't enough, as I drove out to Ferndale to make a delivery I noticed the tiny sliver of a red arm on a gauge on the dashboard had approached the high mark. Just what I need, methinks, the motor is running hot or some such debacle. Yet closer inspection showed it was the gas gauge, doing its job by letting me know I had 7/8 of a tank of gas. No overheating, no low oil pressure, no engine issue at all. You've got gas, Marty, exactly as you should. 

Some days...

 

The Voice

Oh, I've made my share of mistakes in life. Some of them were real doozies, too. And a great big Quiet Ron! before I go a step further.

Still, for all my errors and foibles I've tried not to commit stupid mistakes. Those are mistakes that are very, very avoidable. They're Eleventh Commandment mistakes.

You never heard of the 11th Commandment? Ahem: Thou Shalt Not Press Thy Luck. It's a footnote to the famous Ten which precede it. Honest.

Should you presseth thy luck you could be in all manner of trouble. So don't do it. One way to press it is to not gas up when you should.

I had a quick jaunt out to Dearborn yesterday. It was at most a 12 or 15 mile round trip. Yet I was at 1/8 of a tank of gas. I figured I could get to my destination and back to the old barn. 

Then I heard that voice in my head (sometimes it's all right to listen to that voice) what if there's a traffic jam? That's not much gas if you're sitting on I-94 for 90 minutes.

I gassed up before leaving the neighborhood. No stupid mistake for me. At least not yesterday.

Stupid Mistakes

There are mistakes, me Uncle John who we call Zeke used to say, and there are stupid mistakes. While you want to avoid either the former are more forgivable than the latter.

Yesterday I almost made a stupid mistake. I noticed that a tire was low on my newer older van. Then, since I hadn't checked it in awhile, I saw that my spare was low too. "Ah, I'll take care of them tomorrow," I thought to myself.

No, take care of them today, another voice told me. You're going curling tonight in Canada. You really want to take a chance of having a flat at 10 PM, in the cold, in another country, with an almost flat spare too?

I aired up the tires yesterday, and all went well. I've made enough stupid mistakes before. I'm old enough I should stop that.