My daughter pulled another vaguely driving-related stunt this morning. Usually she drives to school with me in the passenger seat (since she still only has a permit). This morning she wasn’t downstairs as early as usual so I checked with her. She said she was up and everything was fine, and then she came down the stairs, grabbed the car key and went out the door. I stopped to put on my sweater and grab my purse and followed a bit more slowly.
However, when I got outside there was no sign of her. The car door was open and unlocked, her purse, keys and backpack were missing, and there were tire marks of a U-turn in front of our driveway. I called her phone to check on her but she didn’t answer. I called her usual going-to-school buddies and they hadn’t seen her. The neighbor across the street offered to check and see if she had gone to the bus stop for some unknown reason while I got my son ready for his bus, but he couldn’t find her either.
By this time it had been 30 minutes since I had seen her and, being a typical mom, I started to panic. I double-checked her room and both bathrooms, hollered her name a few times and called all the neighbors who might have given her a ride, but no joy.
Last year a nurse in our town went off shift, went out to her car in the hospital parking lot and was abducted and killed, so I did the natural thing: I called 911 and reported her missing. And then I sat down in the front yard and freaked out.
But all’s well that end’s well – just as the police officer arrived one of her friends called and said my daughter was at school at tennis practice and that yet another friend had picked her up. Then my daughter called and said she told me her friend was taking her before she left – maybe she did but I sure didn’t hear it! So I told the police officer where she was and why I had called so he could get back to real problems.
And then I called her back and read her the riot act.
Aaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!!! Parenthood is not for sissies!