When the police knock on your door at 0500.......

I had the unexpected opportunity to speak with a nice American Fork police officer at 5 o'clock this morning. Do you know what that does to a person's mental status when you first spot the uniformed officer standing at your door??? I don't even know exactly how many thoughts went screaming though my head in the 2.47 seconds that existed from the time I saw him through the peephole to the moment he started speaking.

"Were the dogs barking too loud and a neighbor complained?"
"Are the kids still in their beds, safe and asleep?"
"Did something happen to Mario at work tonight?"
"Did Julie leave for work already and get in an accident?"
"Are mom and dad ok?"
"Are they looking for someone in this area?"

On and on those thoughts blasted through my cloudy mind until he started to speak. "We had a 911 call from somewhere in this area...." Oh thank goodness! I knew I hadn't called, I really doubt the kids had...

"I don't think we made any calls, did it come from a cell phone or house phone?" I asked. "Yes, from a cell phone, it actually came through Provo..." Hmmmmmm, I don't like that at all. He told me the number that had made the call, and it was Mario's cell number. Suddenly my heart dropped. He was at work tonight, and shouldn't have been heading home yet. "That's my husband's cell phone, he's at work at the Utah State Hospital tonight...." I started to shake as the new scenarios started to play out. Had some crazy bastard really snapped and hurt someone? Did he need help and had used his phone to call 911....did he get off early this morning and been in a car accident? The officer must have noticed my look of panic and started to speak again. "Sorry to have woken you up, I'll let Provo know and they'll check it out, ok?" Still stuck in the "what happened to Mario scenarios", I think I mumbled something like "Yeah....ok...no problem....thank you...."

I ran back to my room and grabbed by phone and hit the speed dial button to call Mario. As it was ringing, I ran and checked on both the kids, just in case. Since it had been Mario's phone, I knew Julie was ok, so I went back to my room and sat on my bed while I waited for him to answer. Four rings.....five rings....I started to wonder what would be worse, if he answered and something was wrong, or if he didn't answer at all. Finally, a sleepy voice on the other end picked up and said "Hello?"

"ARE YOU OK?!?!?!?!?" I might have yelled that a little bit...I was relieved at the idea that he was alive enough to answer his phone, but still afraid his answer would be "no". "Yeah, why?" he replied. I went on to explain what had happened just moments ago at my doorstep. "I didn't make any calls, my phone keeps doing weird things like turning itself off and stuff, but I haven't made any calls this morning" he explained. I have yet to experience true panic from this man in the way that I sometimes do when something is too far from the ordinary for my comfort. He was neither concerned nor interested in the situation, really. I asked him to figure out what had happened, and to expect the police to either call him or come by and check on him, since they have to do that in the case of an unexplained 911 call. A little while later, I texted him and he said they had come by to check on him, and he still doesn't know what happened. A preset speed dial must have been bumped or something. I told him that now that I knew he was ok, he needed to turn that POS phone off, and I would get him a new one later today.

Thank goodness everyone is ok. I'm thankful for the officers who checked up on us, in the case that it had been a real emergency. I hope it didn't take away from anyone else who truly was in need of help. I find humor in the fact that my first thought was the best case scenario, that it wasn't anything life-threatening, just some noisy dogs. Maybe I'm more of an optimist than I thought I was. I'm saddened for everyone who has had a real middle-of-the-night wake up call from any uniformed person, and I'm so glad mine was just a mistake. Our lives will go on unchanged. And, on the upside, I now have so much adrenaline running through me, I think I'll just stay up and finish studying for my test today....