Ctrl-Z! Ctrl-Z!

Every now and then I really wish that life operated like TiVo, where you can rewind five or ten seconds back any time you want, or a good word processing program (or even a bad one) that has Unlimited Undo.

Tonight on the way in from work, I stopped at the neighborhood deli, a way station in the freezing cold, and at the cash register, I absent-mindedly addressed Mr. Kim, the very proper Korean deli owner I've been buying milk and bread from for ten years, as Mr. Lee, the very nice Chinese man down the block with whom I deal for my dry cleaning.

He smiled, and I realized what I had said. "Oh, lord, Mr. Kim, it's so cold I don't even know where I am or who I'm talking to."

And then, fatally: "I must be disoriented."

Gah! Undo! Undo!

(Thank God, he laughed his ass off.)