Better Than A Not-Me-Monday

This weekend Seth and I had a communication mix-up to beat all.  We have had plenty of these before - but this one definitely takes the cake.

Hunting season started on Labor day, and seeing that it has two more weeks until it's over, a lot of wives on the High Arid Plains are feeling a little stir crazy these days - myself being no exception.  Seth also agreed to help hang gutter at the church building on Saturday, so his weekend was very full.  So while he stayed up late Friday night loading his gear, and left the house early Saturday morning to squeeze in as much elk hunting as he could before hanging gutters, I stayed home to try and recover from the stomach bug that has been haunting our town for several weeks now.  Besides being sick and a bit stir crazy, Juliette and I also had an off-week.  She had more temper tantrums and defiant moments over the week than she has had in her entire life- it's like someone told her she was two or something - and being sick I had little patience for it.

So after a day of feeling puny and trying to corral a very active, stubborn, and whiny child - I called Seth and told him that I needed him home NOW!  He said that they needed to finish, and I didn't bother telling him why I was so upset, but just hung up the phone in a huff.  At that point I decided to try and feed Juliette dinner.  She didn't like what I offered her, and she was upset that we didn't have any milk, so I decided to put MYSELF in a time-out and went into my room and shut the door for a few minutes.  Realizing that she still wasn't getting what she wanted, Juliette proceeded to bang on the door and cry even louder - resulting in her knocking a picture off the wall. 

At the sound of the crashing glass, I rushed out of my room, scooped her up, and decided we both needed to get out of the house for awhile.  I'd clean the mess up later - when I had regained my patience. 

We hopped in the car, grabbed a snack from the convenience store, and proceed to drive.  There was a road that I'd always wanted to explore, and I had heard rumors that it went to a neighboring town, so we took off down the dirt.  At one point I realized that I'd left my phone behind in my hurry - but I didn't think much about it.  The whir of the wheels and the Veggie Tales Sunday School Songs soundtrack soothed Juliette into contentment, and I drank in the breathtaking vistas punctuated with the last of the fall foliage.  Finally - a little peace!

In the meantime . . .

Seth decided that my desperate phone call, accentuated with Juliette's screams in the background, might mean that something was seriously wrong - so he left the church building and headed home.  On the way he tried to call me a few times, but couldn't get through. 

When he got to the house, he noticed that my car was gone, that Juliette's food was on the table, and that there was a huge pile of glass shards in the hallway.  Instantly he thought that one of us must have gotten hurt.  He looked for a note - but of course there wasn't one.  He tried calling my phone, only to discover that I'd left it behind.  Clearly, her injuries must have been so bad that she's left everything behind in her hurry to get to medical care - he thought. 

He drove down to the clinic, but didn't find us there.  He noticed the ambulance was out of the station - so that worried him even more.  He called our friends, our doctor, the emergency room in the neighboring town, the police dispatch, everyone he could think of.  And of course, they hadn't seen or heard anything about me or the accident.

Finally, he decided that we must be in route to the emergency room, so he took off to the nearest one (45 miles one way!).  When he got there, we were no where to be found.  I'd disappeared.  He worried that maybe I went to the next biggest town's emergency room, but he admitted that it just didn't make a whole lot of sense. He decided to head back to the house to regroup. 

In the meantime . . .

Even though we had such a nice, peaceful drive, I was quite perturbed when I drove into our driveway and noticed that Seth was not home.  It had been several hours since my initial SOS call, and he still wasn't back.  Humph - I thought to myself - I better get a big apology out of this one!

I unloaded Juliette from the car, settled her in the living room, and started cleaning up the broken glass when I heard Seth come through the door.  Honey, is that you?  Are you all right?  Where have you been?  I thought something was really wrong.  I thought you or Juliette were really hurt! The words poured from his lips, as the look of concern melted from his eyes.  As he relayed the story - I couldn't help but stop rehearsing the You-Owe-Me-Big-Time-Buddy-Speech I'd been playing through my head for the past few hours.

You what? I asked him.  You did what?  He had to start his whole story over again.  But why did you think we were hurt? I asked, putting slivers of glass into the black plastic bag.  He explained it yet again, and as I looked at the circumstances from his eyes, I couldn't help but giggle.  Oh honey - what a mix-up!

He had to call our friends and tell them Juliette and I were okay.  I had to explain to the police officer that visited us a few minutes later that not only were we okay, but we'd never been hurt in the first place. Seth had to admit that he sort of went a little overboard.  I had to apologize for being so rude, for forgetting my phone, and for scaring him so unnecessarily.  We both had to laugh.

Seth preached the next day in a neighboring town.  As we were driving along, I asked him what his topic was, and he looked at me and grinned. How about 'Communication,' he teased.