A Day in Hell

Yesterday was a day in hell for me. My wife has been sick all weekend. It is the kind of sick that finds you in the emergency room on a Saturday night looking for some answers and leaving with none after an hour of, well, sitting in the emergency room with a whole bunch of people who look a hell of a lot sicker than you do. She has this bizarre fever that comes and goes, but when it comes it does so with a vengeance. Nearly 104 and that results in less sleep than is normal. Add to that my inability to sleep lately, getting to bed past midnight most nights, and you can see where being awakened by the phone at 2:15 would not be the best way to start the week.

Then to hear that it is you step-son on the line and that he is in jail for DUI makes it even worse. Finally getting back to sleep and being again awakened at 5:00 to hear that he will be released at 11:00 and figuring that since your wife is sick as a dog, that you will be taking the day off work to get him to his impounded car is just icing on the cake.

But, the day held even more fun surprises, like the Van Nuys jail being in a lock-down and being unable to speak to my step-son. Or like finding out that cell phones cannot accept calls from jails and so having to use your sick wife as a go-between all day long. Or finding out that Van Nuys is the slowest jail system in southern California and that 11:00AM is just a euphemism for 7:00PM (as one bail bondsman told me). Or spending the entire day sitting in my car or standing in the jail feeling my blood sugar bouncing all over the place.

Our one bit of luck is that they actually let him out at 6:30, not 7:00 which gave us enough time to dash across town to the impound lot and hit the door right before they closed it at 7:00.

Please, no mas!