As you are driving down the

road to my house through our cookie cutter neighborhood, you will see these six homes as you turn onto my street.

Mine is the fifth home. But pay attention to home number three. Can you see where this is going? . Dave, Tricia & boys live in Vancouver about 208 miles south of me. Dave has not been up to my house for a year or more. Tricia and the boys came on Tuesday. On Wednesday afternoon we had some errands to run and Dave was on his way up here. Not wanting to lock him out, Tricia called him to see where he was. He was about 30 miles south of us so we told him we would leave the front door unlocked so he could get in. We went shopping and Dave arrived safely in our neighborhood. He drove up to the house, got out of his car and went inside. Stan and I have been making improvements on our home since we bought it, so that the house looked different was not anything to raise any alarms to him. He came up the carpeted stairs, mine are hardwood, into the dining room. He walked over to the white refrigerator, mine is black, and put his groceries in it. He sat down at the pub table, mine is a formal dining table, and read his news paper. After about 20 minutes nature called and he went down the hall to the dirtiest bathroom he had ever seen. Ding, ding, ding, Evy's bathroom never looks like this.......hmmm what is happening. Back down the hall to use the bathroom in the master bedroom which sported an unmade bed and wide screen TV. Again, ding, ding, ding, Evy does not have a wide screen TV and her bed is always made. Out to the living room to the brown sectional, mine is a red set, and diapers all over the floor. Hmmm something is really wrong, downstairs to the bedroom they usually sleep in, open the door and the room is full of targets, you know, like target practice targets. " Hey, I have to be in the wrong house!!!" Back upstairs, grab the paper, get his shoes on and beat it out of the house and down to Stan's office to see which house is the right one. Once he gets down there and tells Stan what happened, he realizes that he left the groceries in the refrigerator.

When he related the story to me by phone, I told him I would go down and tell my neighbor what had happened and ask for the groceries from the fridge.

Dave went back to the neighborhood and to the fifth house, mine. After a while he decided to go tell the neighbors himself so he walked down to the house, knocked on the door but there was no answer. He opened the door and hollered "hello." There was no response, so he ran in and up the stairs and grabbed his groceries from the fridge and back down and out. Whew, he made it!!!

This is Dave, relaxing in my living room, reading his paper.

To my neighbors, if you read this blog, he is mortified and sorry. He promises to always go to the fifth house on the right, not the third.