Communication breakdown

OK, so I lifted the title of this entry from a song (can you hear the tune in your head?), but it fits in this case.

When husbands and wives don’t communicate clearly, the results can vary greatly. Sometimes they can be aggravating, sometimes disastrous, and sometimes a little funny, with perhaps an element of providence thrown in too.

Yesterday I phoned my wife asking if she was ok with having 20 people over for dinner. That was my way of asking if the group of visitors I had been spending the day with could come over and join us for pizza at our house. She quickly agreed. The problem is, I was not clear on which 20 people that meant. You see, we currently have a number of groups of visitors, and she thought I meant the group of international volunteers we spent last week doing orientation with. I meant a different group. We clearly missed each other in this process.

She agreed to have the people over, and then proceeded to invite some of the people from the group she thought I meant. I proceeded to invite the group I actually meant, and transport to/from our house was arranged. By the time we spoke again, and realized our mistake, we now had 35 people coming to our house for dinner.

Oooops! Good thing we have a decent sized apartment to fit them all into.

So, 8 or 9 large pizzas later and an equal number of portions of garlic breadsticks along with several liters of Coke, Pepsi, and other soft-drinks later, we had successfully fed all of our guests. One of the big hits were the chocolate chip cookies that my wife quickly made using the chips one of these groups had brought us. Not a scrap of food was left, but everyone seemed satisfied.

The evening was a success by most accounts. People got to meet new friends, hang out and play games, rest, check email and so on, and all of this in spite of our blunder on who it was that was being invited. So in the end, this time the result of our communication breakdown was good, and likely included that measure of providence I mentioned earlier.

When did you experience a communication breakdown, and what was the result?