Emergency Roughage

So today I'm at work. I've just returned from a super fun Memorial Day camping trip that I'll tell you about some day. I leave for lunch and come back to ten voice mail messages on my business phone. Hello. Even my dear friend, Sara made a comment about it.

I check my messages. I know three of them are old since I haven't deleted them from last week. However, two of the new seven are from my mom and she sounds panicked. I wish I could help you all visualize her panic, but I just can't. Her voice goes up an octave higher and she starts to sound almost a little like she's scolding you. It's actually kind of cute. Next time one of you guys are around me and my Mom at the same time, remind me to tell her something that might panic her. You'll see what I mean.

Anyway, I then see my cell phone and notice that I also have message from my Mom there. Now I'm starting to panic. Did something happen? Are my parents all right? We saw them the night before around 7:30 pm and they seemed fine then.

I listen to her voice mail message on my cell phone and the panic has been replaced by a little bit of anger. Uh oh. She's now upset I haven't returned her phone call.

I dial her at work and she cheerily picks up when she sees me calling in. I then get a worried, "Are you okay? I was worried. I thought maybe you guys all had...you know...maybe a gas leak at your house or something. That stuff will just put you to sleep!"

Gas leak? Seriously, Mom. That's where you're mind went?

"I'm alive and at work," I tell her. I then clarify that that's not necessarily the same as being ALIVE! at work. It's the Tuesday after a three day weekend so I'm kind of dragging.

She then tells me (very sweetly, I might add) that I don't really understand how upset she and my Dad get when they can't reach me. (FYI: Jeremy or I typically talk with one of my parents every 30 hours or so. But this two hour stretch where she couldn't reach me really sent her reeling. Read on to find out why.)

I interrupt her before she can get another sentence out to remind her of the summer night in June 2007 when Jeremy and I called my parents within a five hour span and didn't hear back from them. Not a big deal right? Yes it was. See, the five hour span started at 5:00 pm. My parent's curfew is 8:00 pm max. They just aren't night owls. If they aren't in by 8:00, they're either with us or they are in a ditch somewhere.

I then remind her that we left them so many, many unreturned voice mails. We called hospitals within an hour's drive of their house. We called the police department. At 10:00 at night,we called anyone we thought that could have seen them within 24 hours. No one had seen them for a few days. I remember Jeremy and I deciding who would drive up to their house, a 45 minute ride, to see if everything was okay. Jeremy didn't want me to go because we were both worried what we might find. The Brigham City police dispatcher on duty even knew my folks and told Jeremy that I was to call them before I went into their house and they would escort me in. We were terrified.

Turns out, when I was only 10 minutes away from their house, my Mom called and told me they had been at the hospital with a friend who had suffered a stroke that day. They didn't think about calling us to let us know where they were. Ever since that day we have insisted they carry a cell phone, that is on and operating with them.

My mom remembered this story and kind of laughed it off. "Oh, well," was all I got. I think I actually even heard her rolling her eyes over the phone.

She then told me that she was desperately trying to get a hold of me because she was having sort of a "salad emergency". Turns out, she wanted a recipe for a green salad that I had prepared a few weeks earlier. All this fuss for some greens.

I then tell her, "Thanks. This is totally going on the blog, you know."

Oh, Mom. I definitely love you.