SO, why is this all Jordana’s fault?

I believe her exact words were, “One day she's really going to be sick, and then you'll be sorry!” So, it’s her fault. Heaven forbid I actually have to feel guilty about anything--especially if I can blame someone else!

Anyway, Friday afternoon, Oldest spent the time here quietly reading her book, and around 4:30, Reba swung by on her way home to pick her up before going on to her mom and dad’s house to pick up the other kids and go home. Along about fifteen minutes later, she called me from the car to let me know that there was a giant wreck on the inbound side of the interstate--seems a dump truck had gone through the outbound guardrail and rolled down the embankment into the oncoming lane. Made a big mess, as you can imagine.

Anyway, it gets to be about time to go, and I am buttoning things up right at 5:00 when the phone rings--it’s Reba again, “Hey, she’s really hurting--I’m going to call the doctor.” In the background, I hear what sounds like Oldest being fed into a trash compactor--screaming, crying, wailing, moaning, weeping, bellowing. Hmm. I agreed to wait around here until she had gotten some word back from the doctor’s office about what to do.

Wait, surf a bit, fix stuff for today, and at about 5:20, the phone rings again--“We’ve got to take her right now to the emergency room at Children’s.” Hmm. In the background, still the howling and crying, but by this time I figured there just might be something to this. And at the exact same time immediately started feeling that horrible twinge of guilt. I mean, you know, I knew it probably wasn’t “the unthinkable,” (whatever that might be) but I began to figure there must have been some sort of actual physiological source of her discomfort. “I’ll meet you there.”

I hung up and got my stuff and zipped over to Children’s and after several minutes of wandering around the emergency department entrance, finally found the valet parking guy warmly ensconced in his booth watching television. “Could you park my car for me? I have it parked over there--I didn’t know if that was okay or not.” He gave me a ticket and went on, and I suppose he was miffed at being taken away from the Simpsons.

Then, wait.

I knew it was going to be a while, because on the way over, I heard on the radio that the dump truck wreck had necessitated completely closing the interstate. I just hoped Reba remembered that and took a different route..

I milled around the lobby for a bit, then decided I needed to wait outside so they could see me and not miss the entrance (there’s a lot of construction going on, and I missed it myself). Watched an ambulance crew get their truck back in order after dropping off a patient, watched a couple of cop cars come and go, wondered why the Children’s Harbor building across the street is so fussily ugly, watched another ambulance drop in to chat with the first crew, watched the valet shift change, peeked through the wooden hoarding around the construction site, kept looking at my watch. After 45 minutes came and went, it was apparent they had NOT gone around the wreck but were stuck in traffic waiting to get through.

So, wait. Calculate just exactly how guilty I should feel. Keeps coming up the same answer, despite my best efforts at using different numbers, and not carrying the 3, and multiplying by .09. I knew whatever her malady was, it couldn’t be too horrid, or else she would have been in much worse shape while she was at the office. Still, it wasn’t completely in her head. SO, no matter how many times in the past it had been, there was indeed that one time that it wasn’t, and no matter how many times I ran through the Story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, it didn’t help.

Wait some more.

Finally, about an hour and some change after the initial call, here they come--Reba’s dad drove them in his Explorer--which itself turned into quite an escapade.

NEXT--No need for a siren.
posted by Terry at 10:47:00 AM