Rudy, a brand new friend, had invited Tom and me to his house at 5:00 this afternoon. He said that it was supposed to be sunny and he wanted to cook out. I knew 5:00 would be cutting it close because Judy and I were going to be in East Bay all day. When we accepted the invitation I let Rudy know this, and asked for his phone number just in case.
But he didn't e-mail it to me, and I didn't want to press him.
I was scattered and excited after Judy dropped me off at home. The bridge traffic had stalled, and it was almost 5:00.
We had never been to Rudy's house. Tom asked me for Rudy's address so he could print out a map to his house. I scrambled through some old e-mails and found it. I yelled it to Tom in the next room, and ran into the kitchen to find a phone book. For some reason at the time I thought it would be easier to find Rudy's phone number in the book than on line. It was probably the first time I'd used a phone book in two years.
I was surprised to find his name listed. I wrote the number down so I could call him in the car to let him know we would be 20-25 minutes late.
Tom grabbed the ice cream (Strauss Dutch Chocolate--but honestly, just for your information, Ben&Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is much better and half the price.)
I didn't change clothes or even wash my face; we just jumped in the car. Tom drove, and I called Rudy. The phone number in the phone book turned out to be his OFFICE phone number!
When we got near the street, Tom asked me to look at the map. We figured out how to approach the street, turned onto it, and then Tom said, "What's the address?"
"I don't have the address. You mean you don't have the address?"
"But you gave me the address! Did you not write it down?"
"No! I thought you were printing out the map." The address wasn't on the map.
"Park the car and let's just walk up and down the sidewalk. We're so late I bet he'll be looking out his window and he'll see us."
12 minutes is up at.
