Meeting Expectations

My sister, one of the people with whom I'm struggling at the moment, often speaks to me in a tone of resigned patience that makes it clear I'm getting on her last nerve and that it's quite an effort for her to slow her thinking down to the level of my lower, reptilian brain function.

I am not the only one who notices this, so I'm sure this is a fair and accurate observation, not my own stuff. Or, not JUST my own stuff.

What is my stuff, however, is how I respond to this: By being as stupid as she clearly expects me to be.

In the rest of the world, I'm my normal, relatively competent self. But put me in the same room--or even the same building--as my sister, and my brain melts like an Otter Pop at a Fourth of July parade. In Death Valley. At high noon.

This morning I needed to send a fax from the office. My sister has moved her office recently and doesn't have the phone lines resituated yet, so it was necessary to unhook the phone line from the phone and plug it into the fax. Well within my capabilities. She offered to do it for me, poor little soul that I am, but I opined that I could manage myself.

Yeah. Sure.

I went to the back room, removed the phone line from the wall and plugged it into the fax. I punched in the number, the screen indicated it was dialing, but all I got was a strange tone rather than ringing or a connection. I hit redial several times and then decided to call the intended recipient of the fax to see if their system was working. When I reached over to reconnect the phone, it hit me. I had connected the fax to the phone rather than to the wall jack.

Now, I screw up as often as the next guy, but not much more than that. Unless my sister is within close proximity. When she is, this is the kind of stuff I fall into.

Thank the Good Lord I figured it out, connected it properly, and got the damn thing sent before she realized what I'd done.

Talk about living down to someone's expectations. Sheeeeesh.