Dumbass

Some days I amaze myself with my own dumbassedness.

I went out Friday right after a totally brutal day at work, convinced there could not possibly be enough alcohol in the world to obliterate a most heinous day. As I'm driving down the highway toward a frosty cocktail I decide I need to call a friend I used to work with to ask her to join us. The trouble is I don't have her cell number programmed into my phone. I wobble on down the highway paging through the number in my recent call list, trying to determine which number is hers with one eyeball (mostly) on the road and one eyeball on the teensie, tiny LED (or whatever the heck it's called) screen in teensie, tiny little letters on my cell phone. In a moving vehicle. Sheesh.

I get off the highway to stop in a parking lot to regroup and find the damn number. I scroll through recent incoming calls and don't recoginze her number. The problem is that while I of course know what city she lives in, I don't recognize all these dang new cell phone exchanges. I finally pick out the one I'm sure is hers and dial.

A woman answers the phone. I know immediately it's not the woman I wanted to call. After a few seconds I realize it's the wife of a guy I work with....my sister and I hooked up with him and his wife at Springsteen concert in June. I tell her how I'm a large dumbass and how I'm very sorry to bother her. She's very gracious and we chat for a few minutes....how have you been? What have you been up to? How was vacation? What's up for the weekend? We'll have to get together some night and have drinks.

I hang up and dive right back into crank calling people who know who I am.

I pick another number that I'm positive is the right one and dial. It rings and rings and rings. Do I hang up? WTF. The voice mail finally kicks in and it's a friend I haven't seen in years and years. We recently talked on the phone for a few minutes when we were both in San Diego, though we never did hook up in SD. Instead of leaving a "sorry to miss you" or even a "sorry to call you by accident but I'd really love to talk and I'll call you back over the weekend" message, I just hang up. Like a dumbass.

Like she's not going to know it was me? Like I'm not on her missed call list? Jesus.

Since the third time is the charm, I finally got the right number and when my friend answers I was like, "Sweet Jeebus I knew your number was in here and I was GD determined to get you on the phone!"

We never did hook up.

I am a dumbass.