You can't get that at Crate and Barrell

I suggested Galaxy for dinner with a friend last night.

Lately I've been going there for eel burgers on Sunday nights. They come with beet fries and seaweed salad and the two, combined with a glass of organic Cabernet as well as hemp-crusted apple pie with ice cream, make me not pout about getting up early the following day for work.

Last night, however, I sat down, chatted with my friend for a while, and then was informed by the waitress that Galaxy was out of eel burgers.

"You can have the beet fries and seaweed salad with anything else," she said, "Just not with an eel burger."

I took it for granted, see, that I'd get that eel burger.

But I didn't.

Today I bought a friend a gift off his online wedding registry. It was a British one since he lives in London. I take for granted that these things are more or less the same. Choose some fancy plates, fill out a card with niceties about the wedding, enter credit card information and, voila, you're done.

And this was more or less the case. Except that in Britain there's a pull down menu for titles when entering contact information.

I went back and forth for a few minutes between Baroness and Archduchess. In the end I settled on the latter. Then, there it was on the confirmation the site emailed me moments later: An official-looking receipt with me as Archduchess listed as gift sender.

So the archduchess didn't get her eel burger.

Never assume.