Crossed Wires

While listening to a talk show on the radio the other day, I was reminded of an incident that happened when my son was a pre-teen, when I was still on the police force.

The day in question was one of my days off from work. My son had spent the previous night with his grandparents and my father had taken him to school that morning. As I commonly do, I planned to spend the afternoon in some woman's bed. I'd spoken to my father that morning and he said he'd pick up my son at school, then he'd take him to the mall where I could meet them to pick him up.

So, I went off and had a happy afternoon of debauchery. Later that afternoon, I reluctantly pulled myself out of bed, so I'd not be late to meet my father. I found him walking his laps around the mall, but my son was nowhere in sight.

I asked my father where he was and he said he was about to ask me the same thing. Apparently, we'd gotten our wires crossed and each had thought the other was going to pick him up from school. A couple of moments later, my very angry stepmother comes steaming into the mall with my embarrassed son trailing behind her. When neither I nor my father had shown up at the school, my son called her at home to come get him.

She lit into me for "forgetting" to pick up my son at school, that I was so selfish thinking of nothing beyond my own pleasure, blah, blah, blah, blah. Even when my father interrupted to say that it wasn't anyone's fault, but a simple misunderstanding, she was not mollified and continued ranting at me.

When she got like that, there was no reasoning with her, so I told my Dad I'd see him later, and my son and I left the mall, then stopped at a burger place on the way home.

I'd not thought about this incident in years