Ok so here’s one of my many screw-ups. I don’t know if this one is that good.

 

I was in eighth grade and was performing in the play “You Can’t Take It With You.” I was Mrs. Kirby, a rich, snooty mother of a man who wants to marry a girl from a crazy family.  The first few nights, everything went fine with my lines and everything. But then the next weekend, I guess I hadn’t looked at my lines for awhile. There was this spot of dialogue I was involved in -- I guess I wasn’t paying too much attention, but in one of my answers, I skipped to a line I had that was like two pages later in the script. It wasn’t vital to the continuity of the story, but I cut out the ONLY lines that some other poor fools had!  In my defense, the two lines were sorta similar, but anyway.  

 

So after the play it was pointed out to me what I had done. They were kind of irritated at me (I wasn’t popular in junior high anyway – wrong clothes, wrong hair, you may know the deal*) Anyway, after I screwed the lines up, I remembered thinking, “Must go over those lines again before tomorrow night!” (the last night of the play) Well, I guess in the flurry of all the other things to do getting ready that day I didn’t quite get to it. At the fateful moment, in the middle of the dialogue, I was thinking, “OK, wait, now’s the line about the whatchacallit, right? No, this is the earlier one...wait didn't I already SAY the earlier one? Wait, I don’t know, augh there’s a pause, they must be waiting for my later one, ok  just go for it….”  And I DID IT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CUT OUT THEIR LINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SCREWED IT UP, TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On closing night…no chance for them to say their lines ever again…oh well...one of my many screw-ups….  

 

Susanna in California

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Hey Todd,

I had been having trouble with drafts coming from around my back door, so I decided to do a little home improvement. I went to the hardware store and bought a can of expanding foam insulation; you know the stuff - it comes in a spray can with a little hose on its nozzle to spray it in cracks. My back door is in my kitchen, and next to it is one of those wire-shelving racks where I keep my cereal, cans of soup, pasta, olive oil, bottle of salsa, etc. Well, I began my little insulation project by accidentally dropping something behind the rack, so I set the can of spray foam on the top shelf. Being lazy, I moved the shelving unit without emptying it, which resulted in the contents falling to the floor. In what can only be described as a kitchen version of the Exxon Valdez, the salsa bottle hit first and shattered, puncturing the falling can of spray foam, which proceeded to coat my kitchen floor, the shelving unit and its contents. The mess was so unbelievable I could only stare at it in wonder and utter an expletive.  I now use an old towel to solve the draft problem.

Cheers,

Michael

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