O'REILLY IS DEAD...

Sunday, February 22, 2009

You guys all know this song, right:

O'Reilly is dead and his brother don't know it.
His brother is dead and O'Reilly don't know it.
They both are dead and lying in bed,
And neither one knows that the other is dead.

I used to think - how comforting for them actually. Until today.

While I was wrestling with some purchases for Sarah (the world's pickiest preteen), Don had done all the shopping and was ready to leave Target. I told him - why don't you just go back and load the car, and go somewhere else with Becca while we finish? I took his cell phone and he was to retrieve my cell phone from the car - then we could communicate at will.

Problem was, I was the only one with the car keys. But I didn't know that. I wandered around for hours - trying to call Don and then getting progressively more pissed off because he was ignoring me - then getting worried and wondering what had become of he and Becca.

Meanwhile his cell phone was ringing, but from numbers I didn't recognize. I figured his friends or workmates were trying to get ahold of him, so I let the calls ring through to voice mail. Of course they were Don - trying to call me from other phones because he couldn't get to my cell phone locked in the car.

Eventually, Don and Becca walked home three miles and Sarah and I found the car and drove home. And we each thought we were going to have to call 911 to reporting the other missing!

I don't really know what the moral of this story is. Perhaps it's that cell phones have made us a bit lazy. 20 years ago, parties splitting up would have agreed on a meeting place and time. Perhaps in our house, we ought to go back to that.