Who’s Giving WHO Gray Hairs?

I hadn’t been able to reach my parents for two days. I’d left several messages, and by Monday night, close to 10:00 I started to get those little worried “what if’s”. What if something happened and they had to drive (the 60 miles) from their little town to the hospital? What if there had been an accident? (What if they had fallen and couldn’t get up?!)

So I called my sister Julia.

We discussed the various possibilities. Even though it was pretty late, we decided I would call a couple in their same town, who are good friends with Mom and Dad, and Julia would call the hotel where they usually stay if either one of them is in the hospital. I came to several dead-ends with the long distance operator, and had no luck finding the phone number for Mom and Dad’s friends.

So then I called my sister Pam.

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she remembered that their friend Cristy’s real name was Carrol. (!) After some more sleuthing and silliness—I finally found their phone number and called. No answer. Wincing that they were probably sleeping, I left a long drawn-out message with apologies, and half-laughs and saying this is probably nothing—BUT we’re getting kind of worried…blah blah sorry, goodbye!

Then I called Julia.

Nothing from her investigations either. It’s 10:20 by now. Where WERE they? And should we call (and wake up) Jim or Sue? Would they know anything? We laughed that we would probably hear from EVERYONE in the morning, but that this was a good lesson, and we really need to get a list of their neighbors phone numbers—just in case.

Meanwhile we would just have to hope there was a perfectly good explanation. pace..pace..pace….

10:30 the phone rings. It’s both Mom and Dad. *relief*

Me: (mock-scolding) “WHERE HAVE YOU TWO BEEN!!!!!! It’s 10:30 on a MONDAY night!!!!”

Mom: (can’t stop giggling—) “This is HYSTERICAL!!!!” *

Dad: “I was just bowling with the guys! Do we have to give you an itinerary of everything we do? We DO have a LIFE, you know!”

Me: “Don’t get smart with ME, young man! Your daughters and I were WORRIED!”

Mom and Dad: “giggle giggle giggle”

Me: “Oh, so this is funny? Well, you’re both GROUNDED!”

Between gasps of laughter, they gave me some more of their little excuses and explanations, and then I sent them off to their room to think about it.

Then I called Julia. We discussed the difficulty of raising parents in this day and age, and how it’s hard when their friends are just so WILD, plus there are so many scary things for them to get into…like BOWLING! I mean, my gosh. AND they didn’t have their cell phone with them—or they turned it off on purpose. Ah, but you’ve gotta love ‘em. And at least they’re safe.

*tsk* Parents these days!

:)xo Adagio

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*As Julia pointed out, this role reversal coming from me is ironically funny, because as their Trouble Child, I gave my parents total fits. Seems as though it’s payback time, right Mom and Dad?! :)xo