Claims Adjusters, Avert Your Eyes!

We all make mistakes. If we're lucky, nobody yells at us about them.

"I did a bad thing today," Tiffany said when I walked in from work the other night.

I put down my bag, tossed my Tupperware from lunch into the sink and considered the options.

She might have finished all the cereal without my having had a bowl. Or the peanut butter, which I sometimes rely on for emergency PB&J sandwiches.

"But you can't get mad at me because I already feel terrible," she began again.

Hmmm. That sounded slightly more serious.

"Okay," I said. "What happened?"

"Well," she said. "I made myself eggs with spinach for breakfast this morning. Then I washed my dishes."

So far this all sounded great to me--healthy and clean.

"And then I left and came home a few hours later... and the burner was still on," she finished, pointing to our stovetop.

I blinked.

"Wow," I said.

"You said you wouldn't say anything!"

"I just said wow!" I said. "Okay. Well, I've left the oven on after dinner lots of times."

She nodded.

There were lots of things I wanted to say, but I had made a promise. And it's a good thing I kept it because the next day...

"I did a bad thing too," I said, coming in the door from a doctor's appointment.

I told her I had scooted to my appointment, locked my helmet under the scooter seat and gone inside. When I was finished, I got into the elevator to leave the office, rummaging through my bag for the scooter keys. But they weren't there. I found my house keys, my wallet, my sunglasses... no scooter keys. And then, as I came out of the office doors, I looked up and two men were staring at the scooter. While I watched, one of them gingerly reached down and pulled my keys out of the seat's lock. He handled them in that obvious way people do when they want everyone to know they are not stealing.

My jaw dropped. They looked up and saw me.

"We were just about to take these into the building's security," one of them said.

"Oh my god!" I said. "My girlfriend is going to kill me!"

Thankfully, the men believed the keys were mine. And, as you know, Tiffany did not kill me. In fact, she didn't even yell.

She said, "I've done that before too."