Tagged by Ina - Four Times I Was Wrong

Unlike most of my compadres claim, I actually like to do these "all about me" things.  Finally, a subject I actually know something about!

Unlike someone we all know and don't love, I didn't create GITMO or say on public TV that families should put food on their children, but I have done my share of regrettable acts.  Here are four:

1.  Do not insist that you must buy an expensive carpet that will last forever in the color of Burgundy when you own three small dogs, none of whom are burgundy. My best advice for carpet purchases when you own several dogs, one white, one blonde and one multicolor, just don't buy a damn carpet.  Go straight to the hardwood flooring section of the store.  But if you insist that you just must have carpet, cut a bit of hair from each dog, mix the three bits together, and hold this wad up against the carpet samples.  If you're lucky enough to find something that matches, there's your carpet.  Then go to Best Buy and purchase a Dyson.  Save yourself the trouble of wearing out six cheaper sweepers and just go ahead and get the Dyson.

2.  Do not believe your good friend when she tells you she is hanging around with your boyfriend because she is trying to make her ex jealous. She isn't trying to make her ex jealous, she is doing your boyfriend, will become pregnant with his child, marry him two weeks before it's born and then will divorce him thirteen years later.  In retrospect, I should've sent her a huge Thank You! bouquet, but at the time I was a wide eyed innocent and believed her.  To my credit, when she started hanging around Van, I ran her ass off.

3.  If you run away with a biker for a couple of days, DO NOT GO BACK HOME. Hitchhike to the coast - either - become a busker in the subways, join the Peace Corp., but do not return home expecting your parents to be happy just to see you alive again.  Your Dad will be pissed. He will not buy the story that the part of Kansas City you were in didn't have phone service.  He will have lots and lots to say and then he won't speak to you for the next ten days.

4.  If you aren't German and don't know what you're doing, don't cook a duck. I completely ruined a Christmas dinner in Ulm, Germany, trying to "go native."  I wanted to have the whole German Christmas experience for our family.  I drew the line at the real candles on the tree, but I got a German holiday cookbook and went for it.  I bought the duck, as it hung from a hook, in a neighborhood metzgerei.  I did everything the book said, I think, and at dinner put a beautiful brown bird in the center of the table.  My husband began to carve the duck and dry heave at the same time.  Then the two kids joined the chorus of retching.  Then, just because that's me, I started retching too, for no reason.  We still laugh about that Christmas, but then the laughter stops pretty fast and someone says, "Yuck!"

I'm going to tag Monica, Madame Donna, Phyllis $$$ and Doyle.