I’m Allison, and I’m Not Very Smart

Hi, my name is Allison, and I’m not very smart.

Over Christmas, all of our kids and grandkids came to visit. It was positively glorious. Kyle and Nikki and their 3 little darlings flew in early to spend a full week with us. They came early to miss the flight rush, and so they had to work for a couple of days on and off while we took care of the little ones. Then Lindsay and Nolan and their two angels came up on Christmas morning. You can imagine the chaos that was our house with six adults and 5 children from ages 7 down to 6 months. Just the luggage and clothes and toys were crazy and add in all the Christmas presents and it was just nuts.

When Steve and I visit our kids, we always forget something and there are only 2 of us. But both of our kids and their spouses are amazing at sweeping through each room and gathering up what’s theirs, even when there are multiple families at the house. But this year the level of anarchy was just a bit too high and quite a few things got left behind.

Most of the things left behind were parts to toys or a random sock, but one really important thing was left behind. We have a charging station in the kitchen, and after they’d all left, I found the charger for Kyle’s Dell work laptop sitting on the counter. This was the worst possible thing to be left behind because Kyle was leaving Texas on an extended business trip on Tuesday, the day after New Year’s. I found the charger on Friday.

I packed up the charger in the smallest box I could find and raced over to the local shipping store that does FedEx and UPS. I said that I had to get the box overnight shipped to Texas. The guy said, “Uh, that’s going to be expensive.” I explained that I had no choice because he simply had to have it before he left on his trip. I said I’d pay whatever it cost.

Tell me, what do you think it costs to overnight ship a one-pound 8x2x4″ box from Los Angeles to Texas on a Friday? Whatever you think, you guessed too low. It was ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY DOLLARS! I about fell over when he told me the price. I said, “well ok, it doesn’t HAVE to be Saturday delivery, how about Sunday?” He said Sunday would be the same price. Then I realized he wasn’t leaving till Tuesday so I asked, “How about Monday delivery?” “Lady, that’s a holiday, they don’t even deliver on Monday.”

I was stuck. I couldn’t figure out what to do, and I couldn’t ask Kyle what I should do because his flight was still in the air back to Texas, so I paid the $170.

When Kyle was back home, I texted him the cost and said I hoped he could expense it to his company. He was floored at the cost as well and he said he couldn’t expense it. You can imagine how thrilled he was about this. You might be wondering why I didn’t offer to pay, but I wasn’t the one who forgot it!

As we texted about it, he said that he could have overnighted a new charger via Amazon for a lot less money. And that’s when I realized something.

When I saw that Dell logo on the giant black power supply in the middle of the two power cable pieces, I assumed that this was one of those proprietary laptop charges from back when I was working. I’m certain you have guessed by now that it was a normal old USB-C charger.

I couldn’t believe it. What a terrible mistake of judgment I made. He probably could have bought one at the grocery store! Even the official charger for Dell from Amazon is only $26. I felt so bad when I realized this that I told him I’d at least split the cost with him.

Fast forward a few days and I was talking to Kyle on the phone and he said the strangest thing. He said, “We confirmed that Nikki’s laptop charged just fine using her dock.” I wondered why he was telling me that. And that’s when I realized the only way this story could get worse.

It wasn’t Kyle’s charger, it was Nikki’s. It never had to be overnighted in the first place!