Shining Bright

Last month I was invited to dinner by my coworker, Katie.  I've known and worked with Katie for nearly five years and she and I have always gotten along well.  She's a flower child of the sixties and I embrace the movement she was involved in... so we naturally click.  The dinner was to take place at her home with her husband, daughter, and another family that we both know from work as well.  The dinner was meant to take place tonight, but I got a text from Katie saying that it had been canceled because her daughter, Larkin, was sick.  Understanding, I sent her a text saying thank you so much for the invitation anyway and I sent Larkin a text telling her to feel better.  Larkin responded soon saying, "you should come over for drinks and chit-chat." Figuring she was feeling well enough to hang out with me, not necessarily with an entire dinner party, I headed over to her home after work.

When I arrived, Katie answered the door with a strange look on her face, like, "what the fuck are you doing here?"

Assuming that Larkin just didn't tell anyone that she invited me over, Katie had me come in and we hung out for a while with her husband talking, drinking, and waiting for Larkin to get out of the shower.

Through the rest of the evening, we all sat around the kitchen with wine and hors d'ouvres having a truly pleasant time. 

Eventually, Katie and her husband left for bed, so Larkin and I stayed in the kitchen talking for about an hour then headed out for a smoke, where we stayed for another twenty minutes or so.

I made my goodbye and thanked Larkin for having me over and headed home.

While I was driving home, I checked my messages and realized that Larkin had texted me earlier that day... actually, it was a text she sent me right before the text inviting me over for 'drinks and a chit-chat.'

This newfound text, however, made me feel like a complete and udder idiot -- it was the first half of the invitation text.  This message placed Larkin's invitation in a completely new context by thanking me for the well-wish and then saying "when I'm feeling better..." The rest of the message came as text number two, making the full message, "when I'm feeling better... you should come over for drinks and a chit-chat."

Apparently I was not invited over, rather I knocked on the unsuspecting door, inviting myself in for appetizers and wine.