Do you know what time it is?

A few weeks back, my husband and I were sleeping soundly. Deep sleeping, heavy snoring and a puddle of drool on each of our pillows. Often our sleep is interrupted by my hot flashes, my restless legs, or middle of the night nature calls. But not this night. On this night we were in the midst of some intense REM sleep when ' briiiing, briiing,briiing'...the ringing of the phone harshly woke us both. I sat up confused. My husband knocked over the lamp on his nightstand as he tried to reach the phone. The numbers on the clock read 3:00AM. As I slowly became aware of my surroundings my heart leaped into my throat and my stomach started to churn. Phone calls in the middle of the night are never a good thing.

"Answer the phone. Answer the phone," I hysterically yelled at him. I prayed it wasn't my mom calling to tell me that something unthinkable had happened to my dad. I crossed my fingers and toes, hoping, praying that it wasn't the police telling me bad news about one of my children. And it had better not be one of my tenants calling to tell me that the tenant above them was making too much noise or that someone was parked in their parking space. I tried to patiently listen to the conversation.

"Who did you say you are again?" asked my husband, yawning and scratching his head as he finally started to wake up.
"State Police Officer Jones. I need to speak to Tim Kelley. Is he there?"
"Yes, that is my son and he is here. Asleep. Can you tell me what is going on?"
"No. I need to speak to your son - now."

So my husband proceeded to get out of bed and walk downstairs to our son's bedroom. I paddled after him , wrapping my robe around my pink flamingo pj's.

"Ask him if this is an emergency. Ask him if there has been an accident. Ask him if everyone is okay. Ask him if he knows what time it is. Ask him..." My husband glared in my general direction and shooshed me. I felt nauseous. Phone calls at 3:00 in the morning are never good. I thought my knees were going to collapse.

My son came out into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He took the phone from my husband. "Yes, this is Tim Kelley." I dropped to the floor, holding my head in my hands. I knew that this had to be horrendous and my overactive imagination had created quite a scenario in my mind. Images of sirens, red lights, and more flashed through my brain.

"Yes, yes I did, " I heard my son speak into the phone. "You did what?" I yelled at my son. He brushed me away. Tears started to build up in the corners of my eyes.

" Yes, I was in that area last week," he continued. I ran to pick up the extension. Enough was enough. My nerves were shot.

"Yes, I did lose my wallet last week."

What?

"Oh, great. You found my license and my credit cards. Excellent news." My son had left his wallet on top of his car while pumping gas and it had blown off onto the highway. This State Police Officer had been on duty during night road construction and had found the guts of Tim's wallet - no wallet but all of the important cards were found. Guess he thought it important enough to call and tell us at 3:00 in the morning.

"So can I come down to the station in the morning to get my license and credit cards?"

The officer replied that Tim had to go and meet him right then. Tim agreed since he did want to get his lost cards.

At this point I was still sitting, holding my stomach, still shaken up. My hands were trembling. "He wants you to drive all the way to Exit 14 at 3:00 in the morning? This is odd. I don't like this. Your father is going with you."

While I was still sputtering and muttering, the two headed out the door into the car - to go meet the State Police Officer and retrieve Tim's belongings. I tried to fall back asleep but there was no way that was going to happen. I tossed, I turned, I paced.

Finally husband and son returned. It was now 4:15 AM. Nice. Birds had started to sing. I grumbled to my husband about the need to call our home at 3:00 AM to tell my son that his wallet guts had been found. Was that really necessary? That officer must not have children because if he did he would know that you don't wake people up at ungodly hours to tell them that you found their wallet guts AND you don't make them get in their car and drive to meet you so you can hand deliver the guts of the wallet. My husband decided it might be quieter downstairs in the kitchen so he got up for the day leaving me to grumble to my pillow. Finally at 5:00ish I once again fell asleep, still feeling anxious but no longer nauseous.

And then at 6:30 AM my dog decided to run from window to window in the house barking, growling and howling. I jumped straight up in my bed. What the heck? I flew out of my room screaming at my dog that she had better have a wicked good reason for waking me. If I found out that it was a squirrel that was causing her to get this riled up there was going to be a major tantrum on my part. By the time I got downstairs she was leaping at the front door ~ frantic. I looked out the window to find a local town police officer standing on my porch. No kidding. Not joking. I opened the door, trying to hold my dog back.

"Hi. I just wanted to drop this off for your son. A State Trooper found it on the side of the road, radioed me that he had already given your son the rest of his wallet and thought he might want this so he asked me to bring it over to him." He stood there holding my son's wallet. The empty wallet. The wallet which had been lost one week earlier when it blew off the roof of the car. The wallet which had been run over 1800 times while it laid on the highway and didn't look so much like a wallet anymore. I stared at the police officer and tried to look past him. I just knew that I must be on Candid Camera or I had just been punked by Ashton Kutcher. I pinched myself because the events of the last 4 hours were to bizarre to be real. But nope, I really was standing on my porch at 6:30 in the morning talking to a policeman who was returning the wallet. I thanked him for lack of anything better to say.

I walked to the trash and threw the wallet away. I poured myself a strong cup of coffee. I wondered what time it really was ~ and did anybody care?