Rich takes Reagan and her friend, Leah to school every morning. Today, about 5-10 minutes after they left he called me from his cell phone.
“Hey, do you know what’s going on at the middle school?” he asked.
“No. Why? What’s wrong?” I said, but he didn’t answer immediately, and I could hear him instructing Leah and Reagan to go ahead and get out of the car and walk the rest of the way. That didn’t sound promising.
“Rich? What’s going on?”
“Well there are . . . one, two, three, four, five fire trucks and two ambulances parked in front of the school and traffic is backed up.”
I let that sink for a second and semi-screeched, “And you just dropped her off??!! Rich! What if it’s serious? Call her back!”
“Huh? I can’t. She’s too far away. She’ll be fine.” He sounds irritated.
“But there are fire trucks! And ambulances! What if school is cancelled?”
“She can walk home. It’s a nice day.”
At that point, I just really didn’t even know what to say. He had dropped off my child at the middle school that was surrounded by emergency vehicles. Seriously. So I hung up with him and made a few quick calls to figure out what was going. All remaining doubts about getting Reagan a cell phone vanished when she called me to tell me that there was a gas leak and they weren’t sure when they could get back into the school. A gas leak - good. I can handle a gas leak. I told her to wait around for half an hour and call me back.
It turned out that someone had left a knob turned on, on a stove in the Home Ec room. They aired everything out and, much to everyone’s disappointment I’m sure, let the kids in about 20 minutes later. I called Rich back to tell him and as nicely as I could, said “In the future, if you pull up to a school surrounded by fire trucks, please don’t leave my child there.”
“Why? She was fine. It’s not like there were a bunch of police cars out there.” He sounded a bit defensive and like he thought I was an over-protective nut job. We agreed to disagree on the potential danger of the situation and for my peace of mind he said that next time he’d wait to see what was happening. I feel so much better.
“Hey, do you know what’s going on at the middle school?” he asked.
“No. Why? What’s wrong?” I said, but he didn’t answer immediately, and I could hear him instructing Leah and Reagan to go ahead and get out of the car and walk the rest of the way. That didn’t sound promising.
“Rich? What’s going on?”
“Well there are . . . one, two, three, four, five fire trucks and two ambulances parked in front of the school and traffic is backed up.”
I let that sink for a second and semi-screeched, “And you just dropped her off??!! Rich! What if it’s serious? Call her back!”
“Huh? I can’t. She’s too far away. She’ll be fine.” He sounds irritated.
“But there are fire trucks! And ambulances! What if school is cancelled?”
“She can walk home. It’s a nice day.”
At that point, I just really didn’t even know what to say. He had dropped off my child at the middle school that was surrounded by emergency vehicles. Seriously. So I hung up with him and made a few quick calls to figure out what was going. All remaining doubts about getting Reagan a cell phone vanished when she called me to tell me that there was a gas leak and they weren’t sure when they could get back into the school. A gas leak - good. I can handle a gas leak. I told her to wait around for half an hour and call me back.
It turned out that someone had left a knob turned on, on a stove in the Home Ec room. They aired everything out and, much to everyone’s disappointment I’m sure, let the kids in about 20 minutes later. I called Rich back to tell him and as nicely as I could, said “In the future, if you pull up to a school surrounded by fire trucks, please don’t leave my child there.”
“Why? She was fine. It’s not like there were a bunch of police cars out there.” He sounded a bit defensive and like he thought I was an over-protective nut job. We agreed to disagree on the potential danger of the situation and for my peace of mind he said that next time he’d wait to see what was happening. I feel so much better.
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