Because humor is funnier when you know it's true.
Failure to communicate
Once during my young, single days, I got to attend a trade show in Chicago. It was a chance to learn my industry’s latest technology and to meet some of the suppliers with whom I had spoken on the phone. Since my company also had a booth at the show, it was a chance for me to meet some of our own salesmen.
It was apparently also a chance to be fixed up with a young, single woman. As it turned out, one of my company’s middle-aged salesmen planned to wine and dine a young woman from one of his client companies. He thought it would be a great idea if I joined them A) to take the pressure off him from doing all of the conversing/entertaining at dinner with a 20-something and B) to possibly make points by introducing this young lady to a single guy. We all agreed to the meeting.
The salesman, I’ll call him Dave, had us meet at our company’s booth at the show. He introduced me to Allie, a surprisingly attractive woman, especially for an engineer. So far, so good. Dave planned to drive us all to our dinner destination. One slight concern was that I noticed alcohol on his breath. But no matter, there were plenty of good local restaurants in Chicago so that he shouldn’t have to drive very far.
We got in the car and Dave started driving. And driving. We were soon driving well outside the city limits, and I thought to myself, man, this must be some restaurant. After 45 minutes of driving, I asked Dave, “where is this restaurant?” He said “in Elgin.” Elgin! Why the hell were we driving all the way to Elgin? He explained that we were eating there because in the morning we were visiting our Elgin plant so that Allie could view our operation there. Therefore, he had taken the liberty of reserving rooms for all us at an Elgin hotel. “Uh, Dave,” I said. “You never mentioned this plan to me. I still have a room back in Chicago that I’m paying for! Didn’t you think to mention this? And did it even occur to you to ask where my suitcase was?” “Oh. Sorry,” he said.