Slice of Life 2022: 25 of 31- A not-good call

  It's March, and March means the Slice of Life Story Challenge. All are welcome to join the challenge of noticing and writing about the moments of daily life that are stories.

By 8:00, I started glancing at the clock. Not obsessively, and not with great concern, but with that nagging, back-of -the-brain worry that mothers sometimes get. 

Cecily should be through Pittsfield by now. 

A little later...

She should be on the highway by now. 

A little later...

Could she have made through Albany? Possibly if there wasn't much traffic...I'm hoping.

By 9, I started checking my phone for a text. Ceciiy's great about letting me know when she reaches her destination. She knows I worry. I don't need much. Just the quick I'm here. 

A meeting distracted me, and for an hour, that back-of-brain voice left me alone. But when I checked my phone, there still was no text. Cecily's class started at 10:15, and it was 10:10. She'd left with plenty of time to make it to class on time. Could she still be driving? 

Yes, I'd be that mother who checks in with the first text. You there yet? I write quickly and send. 

Oh, yes, sorry...the initial response. 

And then, a little while later... Let me know when you can talk. 

Now, I know from past experience that Let me know when you can talk is a loaded text. I was in a PD session--leading the PD session, in fact. Could it wait on Cecily's end? If she had to talk at that moment, she'd write something a little different, or she'd call. I let her know I'd be a while, and she gave me the friendly kk. 

PD finished, and I headed to a spot in the building where I could get some signal. I called her, and she answered. (Sort of an unusual phenomenon, these days... all four of my daughters make fun of me for leaving them voicemails as they remind me that they can tell I called and they'll call when they can.)

"What's going on?" I asked in a (perhaps purposeful) upbeat voice. 

"Don't sound so happy, Mom," Cecily said. "This isn't a good call."

Those moments of wondering what it could be last longer than they probably are as I scrolled through the possible disasters that could be the culprit for a not-good call. She was on campus and talking, so no car crash... maybe a fender bender...a roommate issue?...a failed test...she couldn't take it anymore... friends weren't speaking to her... 

"I got a ticket," she said, ending my suspense. 

Is it terrible that relief washed over me? I can deal with a ticket. 

As she told me all about being pulled over and shaking too hard to open the glove box and the cop not being nice at all and driving the speed limit the rest of the way to campus (she was WELL above it if he clocked her correctly), I remembered my tickets. While I wouldn't say that I'm Mario Andretti as my father once suggested, I've had my share of pull-overs, and the first couple of times I shook from head to toe. 

"I'll pay for it," she finished. 

"And maybe slow down a l little," I said. 

We hung up with a laugh.