The Magic Flute

Spouse bought a flute for his musical friend in India, then pondered how to get it from our side of the globe to the other.
We learned that a friend, who lives in a neighbouring city, would shortly be travelling to the musician's corner of the world, and, most happily for us, the friend agreed to carry it with his personal luggage next week.
Last evening we ate supper and prepared to set off for the friend's house to deliver the flute and set it on the next stage of its journey.
Before leaving home we determined that the friend wanted us to pick up a gallon of milk on the way. We bought the milk at our local supermarket and drove into the night on our quest to deliver the flute.
Due to rush-hour traffic on a Monday evening, we were on the road for forty or so minutes; under such stalling and sluggish circumstances, one realises that one's so-called neighbours are not, after all, what one could reasonably call close in proximity. Still, it meant that the fellow in India would soon have his flute.
Along the way we mused about the flute and we remarked about what a stroke of luck it was that the friend was visiting India at just the right time.
Then some single, simple sentence from Spouse jolted me, caused my hands to fly to my head and tear in anguish at my hair, so that Spouse was, for a whole moment, thoroughly alarmed.
"Where's the flute?" I cried, registering with dismay the alteration of Spouse's face as the last word burst forth emphatically.
My heart sank and kept sinking.
"Ahhhhh!" Spouse said.
"Ahhhhh!" was my echo.
"Did we actually forget the flute?" Spouse was incredulous as we turned into the friend's driveway utterly fluteless but, on the bright side, bearing a gallon of milk as requested.
"We forgot the flute," I said. "The whole flute."
We will try again some other evening before the friend flies to India. Just the same, we wondered how it could happen: how we could set off, carefree, with the sole purpose of delivering a precious, much thought about flute and, between the pair of us, forget to bring the flute along.