Pretending to Be Honest in My Dealings

So the other night Mike and I had temple recommend interviews with the stake president. I went in first, right as Mike got a phone call and went outside to talk. To my confusion, the stake president began talking to me as if he knew me.

"It's so nice to see you. And how are you liking Tucson?" he asked. Okay. He's just trying to be ultra-friendly because he just got called and he doesn't know who I am.

"We are liking it," I responded.

"Now, you were a Goodmunson, right?" Hmmmmmm

"Uhhhh, no. I was a Rasmussen," I answered, my confusion growing by the second.

"OH! So you are President Rasmussen's daughter!" A look of recognition came over his face.

"Well, no. I'm not."

"Oh, okay." (He looked very disappointed). "Well, so I never thought I would see Mike P____ again. If you'd have told me he would get a PhD I would not have believed you!"

This guy must know Mike, I thought. He got our last name right. Mike must not have told me he knows him?

"Oh, I know. It took some convincing, but now he's committed to it," I replied genially.

"What is he studying again?"

"Chinese." With this information, the stake president looked positively ASTONISHED.

"And...where did you move here from?"

"Provo. That's where Mike got his Masters. I went to school there, too." I kept on talking like this, telling him about my Masters, and my teaching, etc. All this time, in the back of my head I am thinking who is this man? But, rather than clarifying the situation, I merely assumed that I was the fool who had forgotten that he knows Mike.

So, he asked his temple recommend questions, including the "are you honest in your dealings with your fellow men" question, and then it was time to leave.

"I'll send Mike in," I said, rising. Then I looked out the door and he was missing.

"Oh, I saw him talking on the phone outside," said the stake president. Further proof that he must know Mike, I thought. And I am just the idiot who doesn't know what's going on. It's happened before.

So I left and found Mike.

"That guy is talking like he knows me," I said in a panicky voice, "so you just have to go along with it. That's what I did."

We parted company and I went into the cultural hall for a Relief Society dinner. As we were cleaning up, I found myself holding a folding table with none other than stake president!

"Oh, hello," I said nervously.

"Honest in your dealings, eh?" he asked, laughing.

Then I burst into a frenzied explanation: "I just assumed that you knew Mike and that I was the fool who didn't know what was going on. I just went along with it..."

This did little good. I am sure that the stake president, though he had never previously met me or my husband, will never forget us now.

24 hours till I am in Provo, by the way. And just three short days till Bono. What will I wear, you ask? I'd like to know that, myself. As none of my pants fit me properly, I am at a loss. Too bad I threw out my intensely hot (and I mean temperature-wise) pleather pants--had to retire them after a particularly raucous Indigo Girls/Bonnie Raitt concert.

This is how I look right now:

YIKES! Though I'd like to think that I don't usually have such a perplexing expression on my face. (It was a candid shot). I'd also like to think that the camera adds a couple...hundred pounds. And wearing those light colored clothes is just asking for trouble. But seriously, I am NOT ready to face Bono this Saturday night.

Expect a detailed report of the concert soon.

Until next time (i.e., the next time I humiliate myself)...