The Joys of Hunkering Down

Saturday was certainly one of those days, wasn't it? 

Even if you wanted to go somewhere, or perhaps more especially despite a need to be somewhere, the weather, Winter Storm Kenan (according to the National Weather Service) and/or Nor'easter Winter Storm Bobby, said Channel 3, made motion and movement more hypothetical than actual. 

For anyone at their posts in a public safety job and manning grocery stores and gas stations for those who ventured forth, a large and heartfelt thank you. 

With way too many hours to myself over the weekend, I ended up about ass-deep in snowdrifts but barely ankle-deep in my own thoughts. The good news is that I didn't need a lifeguard, the bad news is it gave me time to compose this. 

Growing up, one of the things that stuck with me was the later in the day a phone call came, the less likely it was to be good news. In my family growing up, we knew better than to phone home after 8 PM, no matter what, and no matter where we were.

At almost seventy, I am, I suppose, all the adult I am ever going to be. The growing old part worked far too well and the growing up part didn't seem to take at all. I still get nervous going into a darkened room and will search out the light switch even if I'm only passing through. 

And phone calls now? Even with, or perhaps especially because of, caller ID, when the phone rings in the evening, I am always startled (maybe wary is a better word). Our phones take two rings to show me the number and name of the caller, and I stand, transfixed, watching that little display.

Despite 'do not call' registrations, I get a lot of folks who technically don't want to sell me anything, which is prohibited by the registry, but rather only want to take a few minutes of my time for a survey on a multitude of issues, services, and products which, many times, always seem to end in what sounds suspiciously like a sales pitch. Or they're just genuinely concerned about my car warranty. All of these unsolicited intrusions I can, and do handle with a skosh more gusto and enjoyment than I really should have, truth be told.

When I see the name and number of our son or daughter in the display, however, my bravado evaporates and I start making horror movies in my head. I mutter 'please don't be anything bad' at least three hundred kajillion times between the second ring, which displays their name, and the third ring that never comes because I answer the phone. 

Both of them would find it cute that their old man breaks out in cold sweats when they call him after dark--if my wife answers the phone, I pace and fret within eyesight and earshot, lest she forgets to tell me of the cataclysmic catastrophe that has befallen one of them which in my fantasy is the only reason they are calling in the first place.

When we brought them home from the hospital, and they still had that 'new baby smell', I used to sit in a corner of their room and watch them sleep. I was fascinated by their breathing and with any and every movement they made while in their crib. I had no need for television-I had found my must-see and did so many times, for many hours, as they grew up.

As an adult, I can understand and internalize the realization that I cannot protect my children, who are in fact, adults, themselves now and who live with their significant others many hours distant from us, from every evil and misfortune in the world, but when the day gets dark and the phone rings at night, my inner grown-up is nowhere to be found. 

And the me that remains can do little more than stare at the phone and hope the monster under the bed has gone away by the time I answer it. 
-bill kenny