Because I really wanted to get some sleep. For some reason, Reba and the girls had gone out shopping Friday evening, and I got Boy to go on to bed at 9, and I did the same. Obviously, when the girls got in, they trompled all over the house and talking in their high-pitched squealy girl voices, so I did the best I could with the pillow-over-my-head trick. This worked until sometime around 11, when Reba finally went to bed, and Oldest was still awake, and still had her television turned up loud enough to where I could hear it in our room, with a pillow over my head.
Got up, told her to turn it down and go to bed.
Went back to bed, angry, of course.
Dropped off for a while, then heard chatter.
GRRRR.
Looked at the clock--1:26 a.m.
Sat up in bed, and the hallway was ablaze with light, and Boy was coming down the hallway to the bathroom. Went in and found that Oldest--who complains all the time about being tired during the day because for some reason she is so oblivious to common sense that she insists on staying up late--was still up. I barked at her to turn off her lights, and go to bed, then told Jonathan to get the *&^%* in bed and go to sleep.
Some time later, I roused and the light in Oldest room was STILL ON, so once more I angried myself into a tizzy and shouted at her to turn the stinking light off, went back to bed, and woke up at 3:00 when the alarm went off. I opened my eyes and saw the silhouette of Boy standing in the doorway like some sort of axe murderer. He was already dressed.
Got up, got on some jeans and a shirt and I think I put on a cap, but maybe I didn't. Went downstairs and made him some breakfast hot pockets and made sure for the final time he had all of his stuff. Shuffled out to the Volvo, got in, got him in, putted over to the middle school. We were the second arrival. Waited for just a bit and then other folks started arriving, so I let him out, told him to be good and listen to his chaperones, to be good, and not be bad, and to remember he represented the school, but more importantly, he had my last name and he'd better not screw it up, and to be good, and not get lost, and to be good. He agreed in general.
Off back to the house, off with my jeans, and possibly the ball cap if I had one on, climbed back into bed, and dropped off. Fitfully, but still, asleep enough. Until 4:11 a.m., when the telephone beside my head chirped to life. It was Boy. At least I thought it was, it was nearly impossible to hear him with the cacophony in the background.
"What's mywheroueoruu?"
"WHAT?"
"Dad--werhessdrehe sethe sherewoe??"
"WHAT?"
"WHAT'S MY CELL PHONE NUMBER!?" His chaperone wanted to know what it was just in case, which is a good idea.
But aside from that--Grr. Dang it all. All you have to do is go to the menu and you can find it, but I'd never shown him that so there's no reason to get too mad at him. I couldn't remember it, though, so I was going to have to get my own phone out and see what the number was of the phone he had.
"WHAT IS IT, DAD?"
"Would you just WAIT a dadgummed minute, son!?"
"OKAY."
I fumbled for my cellphone, found it, got up and went to the bathroom so I could turn it on and see what it said, "DAD, DO YOU HAVE IT YET?"
"I will TELL you when I've GOT IT, OKAY!?"
Turned it on, flipped through the menus, told him the number.
He got it wrong.
Once more.
Still wrong.
ONE MORE TIME.
Finally got it, and I hung up and tried once more to get to sleep. Sometime around daybreak I felt the bed heave and Reba get up, then the tell-tale beating and banging of cookware and stuff downstairs to start the day. I pulled the pillow back over my head again.
Finally got up around 9. Twelve potential hours of sleep, reduced to a total of about three.
And people wondered why I was so grouchy all weekend!
Next: REALIGNMENT!
Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 7, 2007 09:58 AM