Biking to Work? Or Giving Your Wife a HEART-T-TAK?

Sometimes something happens that is kinda bad and the only silver lining is the fact that it would make a great blog post!  This is one of those times.

My facebook status on Monday afternoon read as follows. . .

"I was searching for a recent photo to give the police officer when my 'missing spouse' walked in with some splainin' to do"

The day started in a pretty normal way with me sleeping and him getting up to exercise. . .  What?  I'm doing my cage fitness class on Tuesdays at 1:30 unless there is an orthodontist appointment or a sore back or something. And unless it's too cold I go walking with my walking buddies every weekday while our teens are in early morning seminary.  But today was president's day, a day off, and we were going to spend some quality time with our kids.  I'm not gonna lie, there was talk of bowling.

A couple of the boys were invited on a ski trip.  So T took them to a friend's home for a 6:00am departure and then he returned. As he dressed the dark he mentioned to me something about a ride.  I peeked at him and noticed the bike apparel heard the words "ride my bike" and I rolled over and went back to sleep.

When T goes biking I have no idea where he goes.  This is probably something we need to remedy.  I know my thoughtful brother always leaves a detailed note to his wife about his running route for the morning.  Not a bad idea.  Sometimes there is a group of men that my husband is a part of that goes for long Saturday morning rides together.  He had been seen chatting it up with a few of them the night before so I thought there was a possible ride going on that he forgot to mention to me.  Those rides are significantly longer, and I probably would have protested since it was a day off with family and that time is really precious.  Part of me started to get a bit irked that he might have purposely not told me about a group ride to avoid being told no.  That's really not like him though.

As time went by and he kept not showing himself I felt my irritability start to rise.  My cheerful mood in the early morning slipped away and I found myself bugged that there was no one around to help with cleaning up after breakfast.  Half my crew was on the slopes or on a bike.  Where was my ski trip or my solo bike ride?  I haven't even had time to blog lately.  Where's mine?  Wah wah wah!  T had just been in Texas with a neurology buddy for 6 days the week before, missing Valentines Day and Big Girl's birthday.  How could he do this now knowing how much stress I'd been under with teenagers while he was away?  I turned to my source of comfort.  The pen.  I wrote out my frustrations to him in a not so mature note and placed it on his pillow.  Then I went to cut Big Boy's hair.  I tried not to cut angry.

Big Boy asked me what was wrong.  How could he tell?  I mentioned to him that I was beginning to worry about how long his Dad had been gone.  As I spoke to my son I started adding up the hours in my head.  It had been about 4 hours.  That is a long ride for sure.  A long selfish ride I thought.  Was he thinking I'd go bowling with him after this?  He had another thing coming.  I finished the haircut and decided to start making a few calls.  Maybe one of the other biker-wives had more information than I did.

It took a few calls but finally I got through to someone.  It was one of his biker friends actually.  Not biking but answering his phone, and probably rinsing the dishes while he was at it.  He told me there was no group ride that day.  He also mentioned that my husband had said to him that he would be biking in to work the next day (today) to get a few miles in.  So that would account for the extra time this had been taking.  Why did I miss that part?  "Well I'm glad he told someone that" was my sarcastic response. When I'm upset you really don't want to mess with me.  I'm sad to admit it, but it's true.  So I'd just call him at work and we'd settle this thing right?  Not right.

I called his cell and got no answer.  His iphone reception is bad thanks to A T & T.  But he always gets his texts.  I tried to text with no success and then my mind started imagining the worst.  What if he never got to work?  Now it had been 5 hours.  Did he wear his ID wrist band?  What was he wearing?  What route did he take?  What would I do if he was hurt/dead?  I'd kill him if he were still alive.  I called the police about 30 minutes later.  They were sending over an officer to take the report.  I looked at the note I had written earlier and thought how stupid I was to be so upset with him when he was probably hurt or worse.  I moved the note off his pillow and turned it over.  I went downstairs to look for a recent photo of him for the police officer.  I found a family photo we'd had last October.  What a happy looking family.  Too bad he had to take up biking.

Look at what I just found on his laptop.  

The next time this happens I know just where to look for an ID shot

The next thing I knew he was coming through the front door dripping big drops of biker-sweat in the entry way.  I'm afraid I was pretty upset with him.  He was confused as heck.  He said he told me he'd be going into work on his bike.  The reason he couldn't answer his calls or texts was because he was riding home at the time.  I really should have thought that one through.  I guess I was just too panicked by that time.  I wasn't thinking logically.  I heard my son mention to us through the door in a meek voice "It was just a misunderstanding"  One I hope I never have to go through again.  I'm getting a white board like my sister for people to write on to tell me where they are and when they'll be back.  And the next time something like this happens I'm going to try and take a chill pill.  They should really market those for people like me.