Mark this weekend as when I quit sending my husband, Dustin, to get things. Yes, even if he has a list. I learned my lesson about lists after the muffin incident (see below), but this weekend’s lemonade mix-up canceled all of Dustin’s go-getting tasks.

Four years ago, when none of our three children were at the age where they could be expected to deal reasonably well with disappointment, I sent Dustin to get a box of muffins for their breakfast.

We were visiting Dustin while he was stationed in Washington, D.C., and because I did not live in our D.C. apartment Monday through Friday, it was a borderline bachelor pad. I’m talking Ramen Noodles, peanut butter and jelly, and plastic utensils that were stored where you’d least expect them (not in a convenient place like a top drawer next to the oven, but in a bottom drawer, below the piles of ketchup packets).

So before Dustin left one morning, I asked if he’d go to a nearby market and grab muffins for the boys’ breakfast. When he returned, he only had time to drop off the muffins and leave again for work. The boys opened the box, and here’s what they found: one small bran muffin, one small corn muffin and one small chocolate chip muffin. This was, of course, the equivalent of dropping off one piece of zucchini, one carrot, and one chocolate glazed donut to be split between three boys.

Who brings three muffins to three boys and makes just one of them chocolate chip?

While I blow-dried my hair, and while I was still unaware of the muffin travesty, my three boys attacked the one chocolate chip muffin like a gang of mice. Then they stood in the doorway of the bathroom and told me they were still hungry and the other muffins “didn’t look right.”

That’s when I started giving Dustin lists. For instance, in the future, I didn’t just need “some muffins,” I needed “three muffins of equal deliciousness.”

A few years later, we were visiting him again during a workweek and without easy transportation for ourselves. I sent Dustin a grocery list before we arrived. The only problem: I drafted the list via voice-to-text and sent it as a text message.

For a few days afterward, I was miffed that Dustin did not get the Cheerios I had requested for breakfasts. I know, it seems silly to be mad about Cheerios, but I was mostly upset because there was this really big, random container of cherries in the fridge instead.

A few days later, we went to the store together. I stopped in the produce department to get fruit.

Dustin: “Why are you getting fruit when I have that big container of cherries in the fridge that no one is eating?”

Me: “Yeah, about the cherries. Why would you get a big container of cherries that no one will eat?”

Dustin: “You asked for them.”

Me: “Did not.”

Dustin: “Did!”

Me: “Well, it’s funny that you’d get cherries that I never listed, but you didn’t get the cheer—”

My voice trailed off. I looked back at my text. Yep, Apple had auto-corrected “big thing of Cheerios” to “big thing of cherries.”

So lists weren’t working either.

This past weekend, we took the family to the Blue Hill Fair. We were watching the oxen pull when Lindell, 9, asked Dustin to get him some lemonade while he was out searching for barbecue for himself.

Dustin returned with a really large souvenir cup, which is so unlike my husband, who refuses to “exit through the gift shop” and would rather live the rest of his life inside the zoo than have to purchase trinkets on his way out. Lindell was excited about this unexpected treat: a souvenir-sized frozen lemonade!

He took a sip and spit it out.

“It’s water,” he yelled. “Hot, left-in-the-car type water!”

“No, it’s lemonade,” we said. “Just shake it a little bit.”

Lindell took another sip and spit it out.

Then Ford,15, took a sip and spit it out, too. “Old, lukewarm water,” Ford confirmed.

So we opened the lid, and sure enough, it was filled with water, not lemonade.

At first we thought we had been ripped off, so we went marching back to the vendor in a huff. They saw us coming and smiled.

“Before we could make the lemonade, your husband left with one of our display cups,” the friendly woman said, holding up a souvenir cup, also filled with warm water to keep it from blowing over in the wind.

I looked back at my husband. He smiled sheepishly and shrugged. Then he suggested that he not be sent to get things anymore.

By the way he was smiling, I started to wonder, had this been his plan all along?