“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” (Alfred Hitchcock)
Finally the day came when we expected the anticipated letter in our mailbox. (Our bishop (pastor) had announced the mission call would be arriving that week, and we’d heard from everyone around us that mission calls generally arrive in the Provo/Orem area of Utah on Wednesdays.)
It was Wednesday.
Everyone was full of anticipation. Especially my oldest son for whom the call would be issued. I occasionally joke at his absentmindedness, but even HE was calling ME to check the status of the mailbox. I was stuck at work, so I couldn’t check myself. So I called home and had my youngest son checking every few minutes. That day, it was so odd, but the mail NEVER came! I was becoming increasingly stressed by the unknown, and then to not have the mail delivered was indescribably frustrating. I drove home, somewhat frustrated, when I thought to call my son.
I found out the call had come, and that my son and a group of his friends would be at my home that evening for its opening. (I guess he’d had his sister checking the mail, too, and she’d gotten it and taken care of everything related to it. They just forgot to tell their mother or their younger brother. So there I am, calling occasionally from work, hounding my son about making another trip to the mailbox and thinking the mail hadn’t been delivered when it had been, only to be scooped up by another pair of excited hands!) My son excitedly told me everyone who was coming that night for the opening of the envelope and when he mentioned even some of MY friends, I finally had to say it: “You mean even MY friends knew you got your call…but you forgot to tell your own mother?” My son defended his actions; to him, he’d done the most logical thing in the world. ”What do you mean I didn’t tell you? I put it on Facebook!”
It’s times like that I see I’m a dinosaur in a new generation. Facebook—now why didn’t I think of that?
“We all have a dinosaur deep within us just trying to get out.” (Colin Mochrie)
