I'm a Jackass

I'm taking my "I'm behind!" list chronologically, and next up on the list is the story of that time (recently) when I was an idiot.

One of my closest friends is having a baby in a couple of months, so I and two other friends offered to host a baby shower for her. Initially, I was irritated during the baby shower discussions by one of the other hostesses--I've mentioned this before--but I really want to have a nice party for my friend. The annoying friend, who I'll call Ann for the purposes of this story, let me know she was planning to look around for invitations. She didn't find anything, but the PG Friend emailed me around the same time to tell me she'd been out shopping and picked up some invites that she liked. Super--I ended up just needing to pick up a couple of more packages when she finished the guest list. Since Ann was about to head out of town, she asked me if I minded printing the invitations again (this has been one of my duties for past parties I've hostessed with these gals). I have a pretty nice printer, and I was happy to do it. I double-checked with the other hostess to confirm the phone number she wanted to use and all was well.

Just over a year ago, we three threw a wedding shower for PG Friend at the same place, so I simply cut and pasted the old info into the new invitation. I changed the time, the "wedding" part to "baby" and updated the phone number. I looked everything over again, and it looked fine. Time to print! Except. . .my printed refused to recognize the paper. If it did print, it printed portrait on a landscape page. Nothing I switched or fixed allowed me to print. Fine, fine, I recruited K to help me use his computer & printer. Smart graphic designer man quickly realized that one problem we have is the invitation size is listed incorrectly on the package. The invitations are not 5 x 7 (as listed), they are 4.5 x 6.5. He thought changing the page size would appease the printer, and he did get the invite to print on his printer. Except. . .it printed one, and then thought it needed more paper. Each invitation had to be fed through at least three times (and sometimes six or eight times) before it would print. With 35 invitations to print--and at midnight on a Sunday night--this solution wasn't feasible. I resolved to fix it the next evening on my printer.

The next evening, I realized I was just going to have to tape each invitation to a plain piece of printer paper so my printer didn't freak out. Yes, it was time consuming, but it worked. Two hours later, I finished. I put the little sticker things on each invite, stuffed them into envelopes I'd hand-addressed, and dropped them in the mail the next morning on the way to work.

I mention the lengthy back-story mainly to emphasize the point that both K and I spent a lot of time looking at the invitations.

A day or so later, the PG Friend called me. She received her invitation, and thinks it's funny that I sent one to her. I thought she'd want one for her baby book. She asked if she received a "special" invitation, and started laughing. I didn't know what she was talking about. She thought I was kidding. She continued laughing.

She told me I used her maiden name on the invitations.

No no NO!

Oh, but yes. I am a jackass.

She said it wasn't a big deal--she thought it was funny--but I am crushed. I realized right away that people might think her registry is under her maiden name, but it won't be. I feel like the world's worst friend. I know better than to make a mistake like that! Heck, my job requires strict attention to detail and something like this has never happened at work. Ugh.

Anyway, right away I emailed both the other gals to let them know about my screw-up. I knew they were out of town, but I wanted them to know right away. I'd sent invitations to them, too, so even if they didn't see the email, they'd see my error. I stewed about it all night and most of the next day, too. Finally, I decided to email as many people on the list whose email addresses I had access to and alert them to the problem. I had contact info for just over half the list, so I sent an email explaining the error in case they wanted to find her registry info under the correct name. One of the other hostesses emailed me when she got back into town to tell me she thought I handled the situation perfectly and assured me that worse things could've happened. Ann hasn't spoken to me or emailed me since I agreed to print the invites, even though I know she's back in town. I know she couldn't be more upset/irritated with me that I am with myself, but I hope this doesn't make for any difficulties with the remainder of the planning.

**edited to add: At least one good thing has come out of my mistake & the subsequent email. One of the gals I emailed has not received her invitation, and we discovered that PG Friend had provided an old address on her guest list. (Which I probably should've caught, since I've been to the gal's house twice.) So, there's that.