There’s nothing like a visit from the Police to liven up your night

At 2:10 am the phone rang. Since it had been a windy and rainy night, I had earplugs in to combat the noise, so I didn’t hear it right away. But I got up and grabbed it right AFTER the answering machine picked it up on ring 3 1/2 (I still have never figured out how to change that to pick up LATER. It drives me crazy! How am I supposed to get to the phone by the 3rd ring? Who does that?). Anyway, I grabbed the phone, said hello, and a sweet voice said, “This is the 9-1-1 operator, and we got a call from this number. Is everything alright?”
” What?” I croaked.
She very calmly and patiently asked if this was the Erickson residence, and said that she had gotten a call, and was there an emergency? She sounded kind of like my neighbor. Was this a joke?
I fumbled around saying that I don’t think anyone called 9-1-1, but I would have to check. I was still kind of wondering if this was a dream. I said I would check things out.
“I will send a patrol car over,” she said.
By now Ryan’s up, too. He said he had just barely gone to bed, and he didn’t call. So, we made the rounds. I woke up our poor houseguest Robin, asked her if she had been using the phone, checked on each of the kids, and they were all in their beds, and Ryan checked the phones. By now I was awake, and thinking this out. How on earth did they get a call from us? Could it have come from one of the kids’ cell phones? If it had, why would they call the home phone? I climbed back in bed, and then there was a knock on the door. Oh, yeah, the patrol car. I look out the window, and sure enough, there’s a police car outside. We dashed downstairs, and open the door to the police in our pajamas.

“We got a 9-1-1 from this number. Is everything ok?” Said the nice officer.
We then explained our befuddlement at who had called, and thanked them for coming out and said it looked like everyone was safe. They left.

I checked on all the kids again. Really made sure they were breathing.

How in the world was I going to go back to sleep after this? I’m such a worrier at night as it is, and this wasn’t helping.

Ryan and I said a prayer, and then we ‘went back’ to sleep. Or, Ryan went to sleep and I obsessed about every sound I heard. The ‘whatifs’ finally subsided, and I don’t remember much after 4, so I must have fallen asleep. The 6:20 alarm was harsh, I tell you.

So, it is officially a mystery. But things are fine. The house is fine. The foster bunnies are ok. The chickens are ok. Everything seems to be in order.

Maybe I dreamed it all. Except if I did, why would Ryan had had the same dream?

Oh, well, it’ll be a funny story we can laugh about.
Later.
Much. Later.