Hoo boy. Just when you think life is about a inch away from being boring, you get a phone call at work while you're grubbing on cheesy bread with the lunch bunch. "Janie..is your Mama up there?" Daddy asked. "Uh..no is she supposed to be?" He proceeded to tell me that he had dropped her off in front of the clinic where her doctor's appointment was and went on to do his tutoring thing at the elementary school. When he returned to pick her up an hour later, he found the doors to the "pain" clinic locked. When he called the number on the window he was told they weren't seeing patients today. Where the heck was MOM????

He called her cellphone..no answer. He called my brother to see if he had picked her up. Couldn't get him. By the time he called me he was scared half to death that either somebody had swiped his precious wife or she was wandering around in the cold lost. Me and the boss hopped into her red Hummer and raced out there to find Daddy sitting quietly in the car, expecting the worst. "Call the police" he said. So I did, and repeated the story for about the tenth time. She told me they'd send somebody right out, and my brother pulls up about that moment. Boss took one end of the strip and I started from the middle toward the other end to search the other offices.

Very first one I entered, I spotted her leaning into the receptionist's window. "Mom!" I exclaimed. "What are you DOING here?" The gal behind the desk gave me one of those "here's your sign" looks and patiently explained that Mama had been in the back for quite some time and now they were making her another appointment. Cellphone had not rung. What was up? We made a few jokes about that line from Amazing Grace and all's well that ends well.

I went back outside and told Daddy and Bubba and Boss that I'd found her and didn't even have to pay ransom to get her back ;) Twenty minutes later we were all pulling out and the cops STILL hadn't showed up. I tried to get through to them to tell them it was all good, but couldn't get an answer. As me and Bubba eased out on the highway the cruiser moseyed on down into the parking lot with the cop chatting on his cellphone, probably to his girlfriend. I hope he got the message that Bubba left with the dispatcher along the lines of "good damn thing she wasn't getting beat up!"

*sigh*

Never a dull moment in Poopieland.