Meet My Parents

Because they're TRULY starting to lose it.

I got my mother a computer for Crimmus this year but it's been ailing lately so Eric and I planned to go check it out on Saturday. I called a few days in advance to tell my father we'd be coming by.

Well, Saturday morning rolls around and I wake up uber late...maybe around 11:30. I laze around a bit before I roll over to check my cell phone. I hit a few buttons, realize that it's not turning on and reset it. Once it comes back on, I realize I have no less than three voicemails and 6 pages from my parents. Um, what on earth is going on here??

I listen to the messages: the first is my father calling at 9:51am saying that he had to run a few errands and might not be at the house when I arrived. The second is my father saying he was worried that he hadn't heard from me since the first call. The third is my MOTHER sounding frantic and begging me to call her back as soon as possible.

WTF??!?

I've GOT to put an end to this quickly, so I call my father and he immediately freaks out: "You had your mother and I worried SICK! We've been trying to get in touch with you for the past THREE hours! Your mother was afraid that you were laying on the floor, too sick to pick up the phone. We called your friends and your sister but nobody had heard from you. We were even printing out the directions to your house so we could drive over there to see if you were okay..."

ARE? YOU? KIDDING ME?!?

Okay, so if YOUR parents don't hear from you for three hours they leave a voicemail or call back later. MY parents don't hear from me for 3 hours? They file a missing person's report.

It was only later that I discovered where the problem lie: when I'd told my father I'd be coming over, my words were, "More than likely I'll be there sometime in the afternoon."

To an average person, "sometime in the afternoon" sounds like anywhere between 12 and 5. To MY father, it sounds like "I'll be there at EXACTLY noon. If you don't hear from me, I'm dead. Alert the National Guard."

What am I going to DO with them??