Damned if you do; damned if you don’t

That’s what Arun, a friend of mine from my previous company, must have thought when he heard me complaining last evening. To cut a long story short, I had to attend a reception yesterday. But unfortunately, I assumed that the event was today and had planned my schedule accordingly.

Arun called me at 7:50 PM and checked my plans. When he found out that I was at home he reminded me about the reception. I initially suspected this call from him to be an elaborate prank, since he and a few of my friends in this group are quite capable of pulling my leg. But I finally understood the truth and dashed to the reception.

When he’d called, I was being admonished by my mother for not coming for supper, even after she’d been calling me for the past 5 minutes. So she was quite upset that I was now rushing out due to my absent-mindedness. And she didn’t lose the opportunity to check if this was a recurrence of a similar incident in my 12th standard board exam, when I assumed that date of the Chemistry practical exam to be one day later than the actual date! If Hari had not called me on the morning of the exam, I’d be history. (Thanks Hari).

Anyways, the venue was quite close to my house and since I had just bathed, I was able to leave my house quite quickly and be at the venue by 8:15. After I reached there, I was admonishing Arun for not calling me earlier. My whole point of contention was that he and my other friends SHOULD have called me at least on Saturday morning to find out when I’d be coming. More than just planning our entry at the venue, it would have helped serve a reminder to me.

Arun’s side of the tale was simple. It was a foregone conclusion that I’d be coming there. With respect to the time, it was perhaps going to be 7ish since that is the time that people usually start coming to wedding receptions. So there was no explicit need to call me!

Even though I was angry with him for not calling me earlier, I was obviously thankful that he’d called me at least that late. And from his side, I was chiding him for calling me that late and would have been blasted if he hadn’t called me at all. Ergo, Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.