I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier. I get a tremendous intellectual

and emotional satisfaction when I hear someone give exactly the right response

in a difficult situation.

So I'm always on the alert to hear examples of people knowing the right thing to say.

I remember one incident quite clearly, though it happened many years ago. My husband Jamie and I were

working on a side project with several other people. After we all received a

certain email, one person, our closest friend in the group, meant to reply to the message

just to Jamie and me with a somewhat mean comment about the larger group.

And alas, you can guess.

He made that classic mistake and hit reply all.

He immediately sent a note of apology to the people who were surely very annoyed to see the

message and then sent another note to Jamie and me to lament what had happened.

When I saw his email I sat at my desk trying to figure out how to respond in a way that would make

him feel better.

I knew he must feel terrible about this mistake, and I wanted to comfort him, but I couldn't think of a single thing to write.

But in a flash, my husband sent back what seemed to me to be a simple and perfect response. We've all done it. It was comforting because it was

true. Reply all. We've all done it. Now often when I'm around someone who's screwed up I say to them

we've all done it. I'm Gretchen Rubin and I hope this makes your week a little happier.