My nightmare, their nightmare

"...motherhood is a series of emergencies..." so writes Debra Monroe in her memoir, On the Outskirts of Normal. In a chapter called "A History of Fear" she writes about all the ways her newly adopted baby could be mortally hurt, due to her imagined maternal inadequacy.

You start loosing your child the very minute you get one. Because every time your child learns something, the child moves further away from dependence on you. The fact that Amanda can now occasionally find transportation with friends is yet another step on that slippery slope of our separation. We still drive her to most places, but sometimes she doesn't need us. (It's probably more accurate to say that her need for us changes.)

"Mom, Katie will take me to the game tonight," she told me earlier today. The game was at East High School. Amanda was cheering for the Roosevelt High School varsity boys basketball team, the away team. (Even though Des Moines'ers know that the two giant-sized schools are separated by just a few miles of  I-235.)

Fine. The plan sounded good to me. She'd go with a friend, and I'd arrive by second quarter, watch her cheer, then bring her back home.

But then something happened that scared me. Felt like one of those emergencies you dread. A flash of nightmare.

I was in the kitchen preparing pizza toppings for Bob, thinking I'd have his pizza ready to bake before I left for Amanda's game. (He'd taken Aidan to his basketball practice, where, damn, that coach had Aidan scrimmaging on the "skins" team, I found out later. My son is not a "skins" kind of kid. Had I been there, I would have died inside, or at least embarrassed a couple people, especially Aidan, by talking with the coach.)

What time did Amanda's game start? I forgot. I texted her: "What time does your game start?" I continued chopping onions and slicing garlic.

Amanda texted me back. Except it wasn't Amanda. The text said (exact words), "Your fucking kid lost her phone."

My mind went wild. I imagined Amanda kidnapped. I let her ride with a friend to the basketball game and now she is kidnapped. She's too young to be alone, she's so vulnerable, there's so many predators out  there. Of course predators are going to stalk teenage girls at a high school basketball game. A predator has her. They will use her phone to torment me. Wait a minute, calm down. They didn't say you lost your kid, they said your kid lost her phone. Big difference. For whatever reason, some creepy person had my daughter's phone and was texting me. Had I been cyber bullied? Is this what high-schoolers do to each other regularly?

I came so close to texting back my own version of cyber bullying. Fortunately, even in my state of panic, I held it together enough to realize that I was totally at my bully's mercy. Totally. There was nothing I could do but to be polite. Courtesy was my one and only chance.

And so I texted back: "Will u pls return it?" And then I fumbled around with the T-Mobile 800# and disconnected the service, imagining all the apps and ring tones my texter was downloading. Still, it occurred to me that even if my bully texter was willing to oblige my plea, I'd cut off the service before we could further communicate. There was no way to make arrangements to return the phone.

No  longer in the mood to finish making Bob's pizza, I got in the car and headed over to East High. I was sure that when I got there I'd see Amanda decked out in blue and white with the silver poms, cheering with the rest of the team. But what if I didn't? What if I got there and she was the missing cheerleader? What if there were five girls bopping around the sidelines instead of six?

I called Bob to tell him about the creepy text. He was weirded out too. "Maybe you should just go right over there," he suggested. I already was on the road. He asked that I call him when I saw her, when I could verify with my own eyes that it was her phone, and not her, that was stolen.

If a child falls in the woods by herself, does the parent hear? Children shouldn't be alone in the woods, but sadly, as they grow older, it's inevitable. Or maybe more sadly, there are far too few chances for children to play freely and safely in the woods. I always like the times when we're all home together, just doing nothing but being together. It seems so secure.

I got to East High, parked the car, winded my way through the sidewalk, ramps, hallways, and stairways to the gym full of screaming, teaming kids. I'd never before been in a high school where the public gathering space felt situated in the bowels of the building. The basketball court and its environs seemed to enjoy its posture of strength, like an enormously sturdy bomb shelter. I found the visitors' section. Looked for the cheerleaders. Counted them, 1,2,3,4,5...6. All accounted for. Amanda was there as if nothing had happened. She couldn't see me as I was just a spec of a bug in the massive section of fans, parents, and students, but I could see her. Her cheer smile beamed all across the auditorium. Her pony tail bounced as though her lost or stolen cell phone was a figment of my thinking. I called Bob to let him know that I could see Amanda with my own eyes.

Maybe she had her phone after all. Maybe her friends were just fooling around with it. That would be awesome, I thought. If this was true I wouldn't even care if her friends dropped me an f-bomb. I just wanted the phone back.

During halftime, Amanda confirmed with me -- no cell phone. She had it one moment, and not the next. It simply disappeared. At this point, knowing that indeed she wasn't kidnapped in the woods, my concern turned away from predators and turned towards lost property. I considered that now we were two for two with lost kid phones. (Aidan had an earlier mishap.) And even Amanda's phone, or I should say ex-phone, was a Craig's list special because she'd lost her original phone.

How can regular folk like us keep up with children's cell phones?

But my laments were minor compared to other parents' because one of the Roosevelt basketball team members got terribly injured. He was pushed somehow into diving position, headfirst to the floor. Landed smack on his temple and just laid there like a human puddle. I saw it happen and it was truly horrifying. The game was stopped for a half hour to wait for the paramedics. A half hour with a gym full of RHS and East High kids, no game, no music, no cheers, and only one fistfight in the bleachers. The police broke it up pretty handily.

The old gym held us all in check. It hadn't yet reached the ranks of modernization, still ordering the people with its original built-in bleachers, not the kind that nimbly tuck back. The gym roared its own brute strength, simply with the weight of its massive cement walls and levels. The space reminded me of a ginormous cavern you'd discover deep inside a cave. Were we actually underground? I looked for fire escapes. Painted lettering boldly proclaimed "East Side Scarlets." Scarlets was an odd mascot name, I thought. I'd never heard of that before. Red was the main accent color.

Officials scrubbed blood off the floor where the player had crashed his head, while we all waited for the paramedics to arrive. It was the twilight zone.

Many friends had told me that East High has the most robust alumni association of any high school in the U.S., perhaps in the world. The gym was the very same gym that has held all those thousands of former students. I wondered if anyone believed the place was haunted.
It was troubling that officials moved the injured player to a chair instead of stabilizing his head and neck, keeping him warm, and talking to him. The boy was catatonic as he rose and walked to the bench. I hate to say, but I think moving him like that was a bad, bad mistake on the part of the officials. The mistake was made with the scarlet gym and all of us watching. When the paramedics came, they attached a neck brace and wheeled him out  flat on a gurney. Everyone stood and clapped. The pointless remaining six minutes of the game commenced.

I'm too old for these 15 hour days. I'm too exhausted for these "motherhood emergencies" although I'm told they never go away. Ever.

The gamed ended in a Roosevelt win (yay?) and the gym erupted into the frenzy of everyone leaving all at the same time. I always just stay put and let my cheerleader find me. Through the commotion I hear an announcement on the loud speaker. "Amanda Speirs, please report to the score desk." Did I hear that right? Did they say my daughter's name? "Amanda Speirs, please report to the score desk." I look down from the bleachers and sure enough, there's Amanda claiming her phone. Evidently, my bully texter had turned it in.

All the way home we tried to figure out how my bully texter knew the phone belonged to "Amanda Speirs." Her name wasn't anywhere. The only explanation we have is that it was someone who knows Amanda and knowingly took it, which is another layer of creepiness. Yet, I want to give a small shout out to my bully texter: thank you for changing your mind. And leave my daughter alone.

How will I ever let this girl go to college?

Thanks for coming over to the Charmer blog.

With love, T