Way Back When-sday: Open Mouth, Insert Foot

This one comes courtesy of my husband, the incomparable Erik. Way back when we were dating and first married, we worked at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. There we had a co-worker named Venita. This is her. Sorry about the poorly scanned photo, I pulled it out of my scrapbook.Incidentally, a few hours after this picture was taken, Erik and I got engaged. Just a fun sidenote that has nothing to do with the story.

So anyway, this story is about Venita and my (kind, loving, friendly) husband. Keep in mind that at the time this incident took place, he was a naive 24-year-old who was eager to meet and befriend everyone.

So we were at a co-ed baby shower for a co-worker in our department. Several co-workers and their spouses/significant others were there, including several unfamiliar faces. Ours was a fairly large department (the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiolgy, in case you were curious), and neither Erik nor I had worked there for very long. Thus, we hadn't met everyone yet. This fact caused me to draw inside my shell, too shy to introduce my newly-graduated-from-college self to all these grown-ups who surrounded me. But Erik, as always, was game to meet new people and extend a hand of friendship to those around him.

Erik walked over to our friend Venita and said hello, then gestured to the woman sitting next to her and asked "Is this your mother?" Now, let the record show that Venita often told stories about her mother, whom she was obviously close to. It wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility that Venita would bring her mother to this event, and Erik wanted to help this unfamiliar-to-him, and thus possibly visiting, woman feel comfortable. Venita responded "This is Mary. She works in our department!"

Venita laughed at this case of mistaken identity. Mary, however, was not as amused. Luckily Erik is just lovable enough that she couldn't stay mad at him for long.

The best (or worst) part of the story is that Venita's mother had died about a year previously. So, there was no physical way she could have brought her mother to the baby shower, even if she'd wanted to!