“The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare‘s early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a significant part of the humor coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and wordplay. It has been adapted for opera, stage, screen, and musical theatre numerous times worldwide. In the centuries following its premiere, the play’s title has entered the popular English lexicon as an idiom for “an event or series of events made ridiculous by the number of errors that were made throughout.”
Yesterday, we encountered two significant errors that impacted our day.
First, I had an appointment at 10:25 at a Cleveland Clinic facility not located on the main campus of the Cleveland Clinic. With the printed appointment in hand with the address, I gave it to the driver of the hotel’s shuttle. He punched in the address, as I had done on Maps, and it indicated the location was less than two miles away. No big deal, we thought.
Following the turn-by-turn instructions on Maps, we ended up at a location with no indication of where we were supposed to be. When we realized we weren’t at the correct location, the driver and I typed in the clinic’s name to discover it was 25 minutes from our current location. I called the clinic to tell them we’d be late or to reschedule our appointment.
Realizing we’d never make it on time since the hotel driver wasn’t allowed to drive that far from the hotel, we had him take us back to the hotel. By the time we returned, there was no way we would arrive on time for the 10:25 appointment. I was still on hold with the appointment desk at the distant location. It was already 10:20.
We’d have to call an Uber, and most likely, we wouldn’t arrive at the proper location for another 40 minutes, totally missing the appointment.
I stayed on hold for one hour, and no one answered the call. Later in the day, I tried calling again to apologize for missing the appointment, but I was on hold for so long that I gave up. I decided to arrange another appointment with a nephrologist at the nearby Cleveland Clinic main campus. After all, we’d be here until at least the end of February, plenty of time to get an appointment.
The second error was I couldn’t find my wallet, which I’d been leaving on the small dining table. We scrambled to find my wallet before heading out the door to the “missed” appointment. It contained my medical cards, driver’s licenses, credit cards, and much more. When we scoured every area we could, we had to give up trying and head out the door for the “missed appointment.”
Of course, I panicked, wondering where my wallet was the entire time we were gone. We both scrambled when we returned to the hotel, looking everywhere in our spacious hotel suite. I don’t usually misplace or lose items. My memory is excellent. We knew we hadn’t been out and about anywhere I would have dropped it, nor did we suspect housekeeping of taking it.
We are always here when they come to clean, except for Fridays when they do the deep cleaning. On those days, I attached my phone case to the back of the wallet, which was conjoined by a strong magnet. See the photo below from Amazon, where I purchased this nifty set. Here’s the Amazon link to this item.
When staying in, I only use the phone and its protective case since it’s too bulky to carry the entire thing for the use of the phone only. When heading out, I reattach, via the magnet, the wallet to the phone, and then I have all my cards, etc, with me. The only drawback is the powerful magnet going through security at checkpoints and the magnet picking up any metal items in its path. Nonetheless, since this is also RFID, protecting me from illicit scanning by thieves, it’s worth the few inconveniences.
Well, here’s the shocking discovery about where Tom found the wallet section: IT WAS IN THE OVEN!!!
How in the world would my wallet end up in the oven? Here’s how…
Several days ago, when preparing the chicken pot pies, I took the broiler pan out of the oven (which we stored there to be out of the way) to avoid heating it when I didn’t need to use it. I placed the broiler pan on the table to get it out of the way since the tiny kitchen has very little counter space. When I did this, unbeknownst to me, I placed the pan on top of the wallet’s magnet when it was face-down on the table.
The magnet attached to the bottom of the broiler pan stayed there after I returned the pan to the oven after it cooled down. Yesterday, when we were in a frenzy trying to find my wallet, Tom had the foresight to open the oven door, where he noticed the broiler pan was askew. He picked up the pan, turned it over, and there was my wallet.
Here’s the photo below:
We were aghast. Only Tom, with his extraordinary “attention to detail,” would have thought to look in the oven! It’s a good thing that we didn’t turn on the oven and cook/melt everything in my wallet. Then again, I never warm the oven without taking out the broiler pan first, even if we’re going to broil something, since I avoid handling the hot pan any more than necessary.
Go figure. What a fluke! I’ll never let that happen again!
So, that was our day. Today, we settled back into another pleasant day, listening to podcasts, prepping for dinner, and enjoying each other’s company. Have a lovely weekend.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, October 12, 2014:
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