Accio Jacksons!

An 11-inch holly blog with a phoenix feather core

Worry wart

by Rebecca on 2009-06-07

Tuesday night, I witnessed something that most of you have experienced. We came home from work, and William changed into a suit and headed back to the church for a meeting. It was a meeting with the Elderʼs Quorum presidency and the home teaching district leaders, I assume, to discuss the (astonishing? deplorable? William didnʼt specify.) home teaching efforts for May. Heʼs had one of these meetings before, so before he left, he said, “The last meeting was about an hour long, so I should be home no later than 8:30.”

Fine by me. I settled in for an evening of puttering around the house and started making dinner so that it would be ready by 8:30.

William is good about calling when heʼs on his way home from somewhere, so I started listening for my phone to ring around 8:00. I was getting pretty hungry, too, but I didnʼt want to start eating dinner if William were on his way home. At 8:15, I put my phone in my pocket to make sure that I didnʼt miss the call and started munching on some of those ridiculously tasty watermelon candies that my sister brings me from the BYU Bookstore because I canʼt find them here. At 8:30, I pulled my phone out to make sure that I hadnʼt somehow missed a call. And then I started to worry. Five minutes of little worries (I hope heʼs OK. Should I call?) and still no phone call.

Then the elaborate scenarios started coming. Hereʼs a taste.

  1. His meeting ran late. (But no way. What church meeting runs late? He said 8:30!)
  2. Theyʼre having car trouble and are stranded by the interstate somewhere. (But he wouldʼve called, right? I couldʼve gone to pick them up, easy.)
  3. Theyʼve been in a car accident and are on their way to the hospital. (Hmm, I canʼt really find anything flawed with that one because itʼs hard to call when youʼre in the back of an ambulance strapped to a gurney.)
  4. The church is in a not so nice part of town, so an armed gang entered the church and they are all being held hostage until someone can meet their demands. (OK, do these robbers think that Mormons actually have money to pay a ransom? Uh oh!)
  5. William is dead (inexplicably, but remember, this is my brain telling the story here), and Iʼm going to have to raise my child alone. (Likely. Otherwise, he wouldʼve called by now! And then I started thinking about the first 10 minutes of the new Star Trek movie. Sigh.)

And so my thoughts continued in a similar vein until 8:50 when I thought, “Meeting be darned. Iʼm checking on him,” and sent him a text message. My phone rang just a few minutes later, and William said, “My meeting ran late, and then my ride had to stick around for a few minutes to discuss private elderʼs quorum business. Iʼm on my way home now.” Whew. “I love you.” 20 minutes later, he showed up, nary a scratch, bandage, or gunshot wound in sight. All was well.

Why am I such a worry wart?