The Alarm

At 3 a.m. the Angel Gabriel blew his trumpet, actually many trumpets, tambourines, and every other loud instrument you can imagine. As I leaped from my bed wondering why am I still here? Then I realized it was my house alarm blaring. Really in this neighborhood, why is it going off? I thought maybe a cat set it off or maybe the wind rattled the windows. So I reset it and went back to bed. Fifteen minutes later it went off again. OK, now I’m feeling a bit anxious. What’s going on?? I reset it again, and yep, 15 minutes later, the trumpets are blowing, again. Since I hadn’t woken anyone up, I figured I’d called the only neighbor whose number is programed into my phone and see what he’s doing. Its 3:30 in the morning and he isn’t answering, definitely going to have a chat with him tomorrow, that is after I program a few more numbers into my phone.

Once my heart returned to a somewhat normal beat I called our HR guy, Brad (who happened to be up). ‘HR Brad (that’s what I call him), my house alarm keeps going off. What do you think it is?’ HR Brad says, ‘are you opening the doors?’ Really, he said those words. And I said, in a calm even voice, ‘BRAD, IT’S 3:30 A.M. WHY WOULD I OPEN THE DOOR?’, I added a few other things, like this god forsaken country, and no weapons allowed, and so on, etc. Now, Brad has a Charlie Brown poster in his office, the one where Lucy is a psychiatrist charging 5 cents for a session. I owe Brad a quarter for my session. He calmly said (and he was calm), ‘Stella, do you want me to drive over and look at your house? I will, but no one in this country has a gun, you’re safe.’ Then he came up this next bit of wisdom, ‘Maybe you should stop setting your alarm’ and ‘I’ll send the landlord an email to get it fixed’, No worries there HR Brad, I’ve already sent him an email because he didn’t answer his phone either, but feel free to add to the count. Gee he makes it sound so simple….Men, they see things so different.

A few days later, it’s Saturday, and the routine is to go out to dinner as a team. Well this weekend the group split up and went in two different directions. I was invited to go with both, but chose the smaller group. There were wives in the smaller group, and I miss talking to women. On the way home I realized my plans weren’t finalize with the smaller group, and as fate would have it, I left my phone at the office (which is now programed with everyone’s number). I decided I would stay in and I told the van pool guys (the other group) I was going to get a head start on my laundry (yup, I live an exciting life). About 30 minutes later the group with the wives shows at my door, asking if I still wanted to go to dinner, you bet, I want to talk to women.

Election Day, 5-May and I scheduled the delivery of a dresser for that Sunday. The store owner forgot he planned on closing shop for the day, and since I didn’t answer my phone when they called the delivery guys decided to take a chance and deliver my dresser on Saturday evening. When I didn’t answer my door he went door to door looking for me. When he got my coworkers (vanpool guys) doors they were concerned and they called, yep, HR Brad.

During my nice dinner Brad called one of the guys asking if they had seen me, I appear to be missing, Brad was assured I was fine, he hung up and we went on with dinner. I didn’t think too much about the phone call until the next morning when I learned, Brad got 3 different calls that I wasn’t answering my phone or my door. The neighbors thought I was inside possibly dying or fallen and couldn’t get up; they reminded me I told them I was staying in.

Several lessons learned this weekend, 1. Confirm I have my phone before leaving the office, (15 missed calls within 30 minutes) 2. Tell the neighbors if I change my plans, and 3. Thank HR Brad for being a nice guy, putting up with my early morning calls, and checking up on me when I appear to be missing.

Life in Mountasia is smaller than at home, it’s good to have people looking out for you.