I haven’t either, but she’s in BIG trouble!!  I’ll get to that in a minute.

So, much to my mother’s chagrin, Chucklebutt and I really don’t have a lot of friends.  Maybe it’s an only child thing. Maybe it’s because of my work.  Maybe it’s a weird personality thing — type A, type B, I don’t know?  I do know, that we are fairly happy with our lives, despite the fact we don’t socialize a lot with the outside world.  I’ve always been that way — lots of aquaintances and very few confidants.  As a kid, I had Emme (or should I say Nadine Walsh…inside joke, no one but she will get it.)  While in college I had Jan, Heather and Katie (hey ladies!  I miss Carmichael.)  From the age of 25, the gal in the above picture has been a fixture of my life.  We’ve done some wild and crazy things and had adventures that are way too inappropriate to share on this blog.  Anyway, we talk usually once a week, sometimes more.  She too is an only child and is the little sister I never had.  So when I realized on Thursday that I had not heard from her in two weeks, I started making pestering phone calls.  I called the gentleman in the picture (our dear friend Greg) and he too had not heard from her.  I became anxious and realized that she had not returned 3 phone calls, 4 texts and an email.

This morning I called her mother and got no answer.  My imagination went wild.  I’ve been reading a lot of Lisa Gardner books lately (gruesome thrillers) and imagined them locked in a trunk or chained to a pipe in a flooding basement.  I started making a few more calls to friends but couldn’t get anybody on the East Coast.  Chuck suggested I call the police department and make a “well-being check-up” request.  I did, and her car was not at her house (again, she’s on the East Coast, I’m on the West.)  Next, I called her grandparents.  No answer.  I imagine them all at the hospital or being held hostage by some fiend who wants God only knows what from them.    Now I’m a detective.  I log into her Facebook account (I still refuse to get one) and start surfing her friends.  I actually send messages to two of them to call me ASAP.  Gayle does (thank god for Gayle) and she assures me she has spoken with Christine’s mother this morning, but she has not seen the Christine in months.  I panic and leave yet another message on her momma’s phone.  I’m giving myself to the evening, and then it’s missing persons report time.  I don’t have a lot of friends, so I got to account for the ones I do have.

Fifteen minutes later her mother calls me and assures me that she is alive and well and out of town on vacation.  GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!  I am so relieved.  I’m also peeved beyond belief, but more relieved than peeved.  whewwwwww!  Boy is she ever going to get an earful once she’s back within cell phone range.

So, I wonder what kind of mother I’m going to be?