Wakeup Call

So I'm snoring and sleeping soundly this morning when the cell phone, which I use as an alarm clock, starts ringing on the side table next to my head. I roll over, pick it up and see that it's 4:15 am.

"Hello?"

"Alan?" I recognize the voice of Ms. Reetha, who is the lady that keeps my Father, who is in poor health and has been close to death for quite a while.

At this point, there's a million things running through my head. My father's dead. I'll have to call work and get ready to drive to Columbiana, which car will we take, do we have enough cash to make it down there, etc.

"Yes ma'am," I say.

"Are you doing alright," she asks?

"Ummm, yes ma'am."

"Well I wanted to call you and let you know that my husband and I are getting remarried this Wednesday night and we're bothing being ordained as bishops and we wanted to ask you to be there."

There were several seconds of confused and stunned silence on my part.

"Well Ms. Reetha, I can't really drive down to Alabama during the middle of the week right now. I've started a new job and our finances are tight with the pregnancy and stuff."

"Well, OK, I just wanted you to know about it. Your father's doing much better, you know after he had that recent spell and all..."

She went on for several more minutes, while I lay there pondering on whether I should say something about what time it was. In the end I decided to just play along and politely get her off the phone. Needless to say, after my adrenaline started flowing at 4am I didn't get a whole lot of sleep the rest of the night.