Oops! My Bad

We had the best vacation in years. Though Southern California isn't terribly exotic in my book, we were with my niece and her father and being around quality people and everyone having fun was really the point.

There was very little semblance of reality in our days away. I glanced at the newspaper headlines one day to see nothing in Congress had changed. The only piece of outside world news that caught my eye was that Boeing got the 787 to fly in its maiden voyage! I assure you that is wonderful news for all of us who count on Boeing to feed our families.

Needless to say, very little of my other duties and responsibilities were of concern to me. Which is why my guard was down.

While waiting at the bottom of Tarzan's Treehouse (formerly "Swiss Family Robinson's Treehouse" and by the way, Jane and Mrs. Robinson have the same interior designer--who knew?) for the rest of my family, a man snuck up and grabbed me from behind. He yelled, "boo!"

I jumped a mile and turned around to see who the prankster happened to be. The man, completely embarrassed at having grabbed the wrong person started babbling apologies at ten miles an hour. "I am so sorry, I thought you were someone else..." etc. However, it didn't matter. My brain hadn't clued in he was remorseful. My brain was on vacation.

This guy was the spitting image of Michael Smith ("Mr. Smith" to my long-time readers). He had the same ratty look on his face. The same glasses. The same height, build, coloring, overbite and bad haircut. While this guy was stammering his apology, I just stared at him blankly thinking, "Why the hell doesn't Michael Smith just go away. How in the world did he get here? Why can't he just leave me alone?"

Finally, I shot him the bitchy withered look I have been saving for the occasion and left him, in mid-"I'm so sorry" and walked away. It took me a few beats to realize it wasn't really Michael Smith and I had left my manners back at the treehouse.

Poor guy.