It was quite the adventure. Imagine the scene. A beautiful Saturday morning. 10 am. We stop by a friend's house to drop something off before continuing with our plans for the day. The husband's cell phone rings. According to his report, my mother said, "J. and I are too sick to take care of each other. What do you think I should do?"

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Who are you and what have you done with my mother? "What do you think I should do?" is not a sentence that is in her vocabulary.

The husband and his "call an ambulance" suggestion made no progress with her at all, and he handed the phone off to me. Yay. Since we knew it would be about three hours before we could be at her house, loaded up, and on the way to the hospital, calling someone from church to drive them seemed a sane and sensible plan. Mother agreed to it. We would head their way and be at the hospital in about two hours.

When I called back a bit later to make sure she got in touch with someone, she said that she had talked to D. and to F. and that they would get to the hospital. So we're thinking, that's great. F. knows. Everything is well in hand. Sigh of relief.

Fast forward a little less than two hours. We arrive at the hospital and ask "Where are J. and M. C.?" They haven't seen them. Danger, Will Robinson. Danger. There is no way we should have beaten them to the hospital.

So I call Mom's cell. Voice mail. Leave a "where are you?" message. She calls back in a few minutes and says she's almost there. Meet her at the door because she needs help in. Ok. What are you in? The truck. At this point I'm really, really hoping that F. is driving, but I'm starting to smell a rat.

About this time, an ambulance arrives. With Dad. Where's Mom? She was right behind us. Nice ambulance ladies report that they tried their best to talk her into getting in the ambulance. Who's driving? She is. OH! SHIT!

So I go in with Dad, and the husband waits outside for Mom. And waits. And waits. Just about the time I'm going to suggest he go look for her, she arrives. In pj's, slippers, and a robe. The husband practically carried her in. The first part of the trip was extremely curvy. I have no idea how she made it there in her condition. Her poor gray haired guardian angel must have had to call for backup on that one.

Slowly, we begin to piece the story together. Supposedly, D. was busy. I suspect that she called and said, "What are you doing?" rather than, "Can you drive us to the hospital?" We don't find out what happened to F. until much later.

So anyway, they decide to take themselves to the hospital. In the process of getting to the truck, Dad falls. And can't get up. (What was that commercial?) Mom is too weak to help him up. So now they have no choice but to call an ambulance. Which takes an hour to arrive. So there Dad is, on the ground, with pneumonia, because Mom felt it necessary to tell me everything was under control when it wasn't. Will we ever believe her again? No, clearly not.

But now we're all at the hospital. Mom is about to pass out, Dad can't remember his phone number, so I get the job of taking care of all the paperwork. My first experience with doing so. Joy. Fortunately, there was a very sweet grandmotherly type at the desk who told me what a good daughter I was for driving two hours to take care of this and walked me through everything.

Sometime during this disaster, F. calls. As it turns out, Mom told him that she was going to have to go to the hospital, but neglected to mention that Dad was sick too. So F. thought Dad was fine to drive and everything was under control. Do I notice a recurring theme here?

Have I mentioned that Mom is a Taurus? *deep sigh*

We finally get them settled into a room, and they both decide they want a hamburger. Off we go to Sonic. I can't decide whether to laugh or cry, so I don't do either.

We finally got home at about 9:30 and collapsed into bed. I'd still be there if I hadn't started coughing, but I think I'll go back for a while.