Having spent a very long day traipsing around London today, followed by a long a sweaty train ride home, I arrived at my house a little later than I have been lately. I opened the door and wandered in to our lounge, to be greeted by an empty house. “Hmm, this is a little odd” I thought – “They must be upstairs having a bath, or maybe doing bedtime stories”. Upon further inspection, I found absolutely no sign of my wife, children or the car. Which is where I started to slowly panic…
My wife and children were planning to spend the day with a friend of ours, visiting a farm (and meeting our friend’s new baby) – but they were planning to be back in the early afternoon. I’d heard no talk of any other plans – though the start of the Reading festival means extra traffic, so in the back of my head, the possibility of her being stuck in traffic was my first explanation.
Rather than recount the whole story for you verbatim – and because my wife (now safely home along with my children) found my panic somewhat amusing – I thought I would illustrate my journey from confusion to panic in the same way any sane individual would: GRAPH FORM!
So here, for your amusement and mocking, is my journey from confusion to panic – over the space of about 10 minutes. Perhaps I was over-reacting? Perhaps I’m (as my wife suggests) a moron? Decide for yourself…
Thankfully, as I said above, my wife and children are now safely at home again, and we’ve all had a good laugh about it. I rather over-egged the whole “She’s left me!” side when I told her and everyone on Facebook, mainly to mask the sad truth which was that I was genuinely worried she’d been involved in an accident. But everyone who I’ve told has agreed on one thing – I clearly love my wife.
Or at least I did, until she left me… :D
This post has been sponsored by the good people at the Baby Gift Gallery, who sell amazing Personalised Baby Gifts for the little treasure in your life. Without their help, I wouldn’t have any beer in the fridge and I’d still be panicking now :D
That’s so sweet Henry. You have a beautiful family. Glad its all ok :-)
Ha! I think my worry meter would have gone off the charts at MIL’s first sentence. Nicely done. :)
If you had moved the getting of the cold beer to earlier up in the piece, you might not have reached those seven, eights, nines or tens…
Great piece, I love it.
Hilarious! The “missing wife” issue has been large in my marriage too, to the extent that we had “Tin Wedding Whistle” (http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/wedding_whistle.html) as the reading at our wedding. Sample lines:
“In all your absences I glimpse
Fire and flood and trolls and imps.
Is your train a minute slothful?
I goad the stationmaster wrothful.
When with friends to bridge you drive
I never know if you’re alive,
And when you linger late in shops
I long to telephone the cops.”