Who's on First....

My Dear Hubby deserves a medal in patience. Have you ever seen this classic clip with Abbott and Costello? This is what it's like to live with me.

I have a refrigerator magnet that says it all, at least for my long-suffering Dear Hubby who's been with me 36 years now. It says: "You can tell a Swede. You just can't tell them much." I don't know how many times I've caused that poor man to shake his head at me and say, "For someone so smart, how can you be so dense?!" Because I am. Dense.

A couple of days ago we went to a corporate center to a company where we had to sign some documents. I had the Mapquest directions in hand and navigated us to the building without any problem. As we walked into the huge main lobby I consulted the notes I'd taken and told Dear Hubby, "It's Suite 200 so we need to go to the second floor." So we found the elevator and got on and Dear Hubby pushed the "2" button. The doors stayed open so he pushed the button again. The doors slid shut. After what seemed an eternity the doors slid open again and I could see the number 2 etched in to each side of the door posts so I said, "We're on the 2nd floor now." "We are on the 2nd floor," Dear Hubby said back. I gave him kind of a weird look and said, "Yes, that's what I told you. We're on the 2nd floor." As I started to step off the elevator I said, "Boy, that was the quietest and smoothest elevator I've ever ridden on!" And he said, "That's because it didn't go anywhere." I stopped in my tracks and looked at him. "What do you mean?" I asked. "It went to the 2nd floor." "No," he rolled his eyes at me, "we're on the 2nd floor." "I know," I said, "because we just got there."

We each took an exasperated sigh and tried again.

"What I'm telling you," he explained ever-so-patiently, "is that we were on the 2nd floor to begin with. The reason you had such a smooth ride is because the elevator didn't go anywhere. There's another floor below us that's below ground."

The light bulb finally began to flicker.

Author Update: Linda brought it to my attention that "Aren't most floors underneath the ground the basement?" so I must explain that this is a building built into a hillside. The main doors to the lobby actually do open onto the 2nd floor. The floor underneath is the 1st floor, with huge windows looking out over the valley. Underneath that is the basement, haha!