Nothing as scary as a middle-of-the-night call
LORI CLINCH Are We There Yet?
In another week or so, I'll be 44 years old. That age might bother the youthful. Yet, I like this time in my life. You see, my knees may not bend as smoothly as they used to, and my face is filling with wrinkles, but for the first time since I gave birth to the firstborn, I'm practically guaranteed to sleep through the night.

There are no more 2 a.m. feedings, no toddlers with the croup, and although our eldest son seems to have his days and nights turned around, no one needs to be rocked through the wee hours.

Yes sir, life is good.

I think it goes without saying that my husband and I feel that late-night disturbances are a thing of the past. Therefore, a 1 a.m. phone call is enough to make a gal such as me choke on her antacids.

Picture for me, if you will, the quiet house that embraced us just last Saturday night. Envision the darkness. Visualize Mr. and Mrs. Clinch sleeping soundly, perhaps snoring, and although we weren't lovely, we had to have been peaceful.

All was perfectly still, the wind calm and the barometric pressure stable right up until the early hour of the morning when the phone rang.

Although our phones have a nice and normal ring at 2 in the afternoon, at 1 in the morning they are reminiscent of a smoke detector sounding off - in a bucket, in a tin room, with amplifiers all about.

I think it goes without saying that smarter people would have a large phone with big numbers right by the bed with spotlights aimed at its receiver. But as I said, we don't get 1 a.m. phone calls, so quick phone locating has never been a big concern to us.

Upon hearing the deafening ring, I bolted straight up in bed and reacted as any normal woman would have - by smacking her husband. He, in turn, sat up and proceeded to reach into the pillows and flail about into the night as he groped the darkness in an attempt to find the ringing menace to peaceful sleep. I went left and then right and in an all-out scramble to find the stinking thing, fell out of bed.W

hen I finally located the handset, I looked at the caller ID and when I noticed the police department on the display, I took a minute to feel faint, clutch my chest and to prepare for the big one to call me home to be with the Lord.

Although saying "Hello" is customary in our country when answering the phone, I must say that all etiquette goes out the window for the 1 a.m. phone call. "What?" I screamed into the receiver. "Mrs. Clinch?" "Yes?"

"This is Officer McRiot."

"Oh dear Lord, Pat," I said to my husband as I put a hand over the mouthpiece, "it's Officer McRiot." Poor Pat was still rubbing his head from the smack I'd given him, "What does he want?" he whispered.

"I don't know!"

"Well, find out!"

"What do you need?" I said into the phone, my voice shaking.

"We were wondering. Do you still own the house on Sixth Street?"

Now, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I do pride myself on having at least a spark or two of intelligence. Yet at that precise moment, I doubt I could have recalled my own middle name. I didn't know if we still owned the house on Sixth Street, nor did I know if we ever owned the house on Sixth Street, or if we had ever owned a house in our lives.

Thankfully enough for both Officer McRiot and myself, Pat was sitting at my side with a red mark on his head and as alert and on top of his mental game as could be. I turned to him and said, "Do we still own the house on Sixth Street?"

"We sold it," he replied.

I relayed this very important fact to the nice officer, and he said, "OK, sorry to have bothered you," and promptly hung up.

Pat and I looked at the phone, looked at each other, and then back to the phone again. If 1 a.m. phone calls were a regular thing, perhaps we would have known what to do. Perhaps we would have shrugged our shoulders, slipped back into the bed sheets and returned to our slumber.

Sadly enough for us, our adrenalin was going, our muscles were flexed, and our metabolisms were ready for fight or flight. There would be no snoring, no slumber and no stabilizing the barometric pressure.

Since sleeping was out of the question, we decided that turnabout is fair play, and just for fun, we went and woke up the kids.

Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book "Are We There Yet?" You can reach her at www.loriclinch. com.