Home alone

I passed a major milestone last weekend. At 25 years of age, I stayed home alone overnight for the first time.


That may come as a surprise to many of you brave, independent types, but I’ve never really had much of an occasion to stay by myself. I lived with Mom and Dad until I left for college, where I inhabited a dorm for all 4 years, surrounded by people. Then, I moved home for almost a year until Gunter and I got married. Since then, he’s probably only been gone overnight a couple of times, and I took advantage of those occasions by staying with my parents or my Aunt Pam and Dear Grandmother. To my credit, however, I have stayed in a hotel alone…but just like the dorm, I was still pretty much surrounded by people up and down the hallway.

So last weekend as Gunter left to be in a friend’s wedding in Orlando, I decided that I was grown and that I really just wanted to stay in my own house. Nobody protested…much.

The first night was great. I slept like a log. I expected that I would get scared at some point, but I never did. What I DID get was lazy. I surprised me. I thought that if I had the house to myself, I would get so much done, but it was quite the opposite. Suddenly, with nobody around, all I wanted to do was lie on the couch and eat junk – which I did for quite a while.

The second night alone was a bit more eventful. I spent early evening “helping decorate” for my brother’s wedding shower. Afterwards, the Bailey bunch went to eat at my beloved Chicken Shack, where we ended up staying for about 2 hours due to lack of waitresses. I got home a little later than I’d planned, but no big deal. I’m grown, right? So grown that my dad waited around after an event at the church so he could walk me in and check my house for intruders before I locked up for the night.

I had already talked with Gunter on the phone, so I nonchalantly crawled into bed about 11 and started to doze. That is, until the search party arrived at my door.

“Did I actually hear knocking, or was I just dreaming? There it is again. Should I go to the door? Maybe I should take a weapon. I hear knocking AND my name. It must be safe.”

Scooted out of the bed (no easy task these days), threw on a robe and opened the door to find my daddy standing there. My first thought – “Who’s dead?” Mom peeked out from behind him. “Gunter…” he said, and my heart stopped for a split second before he finished, “has been trying to get up with you for 3 hours.” (Even though it was more like 2.) They had called, too, and I had not received a single ring or a message on the ol’ trusty cell phone.

Gunter was a tad upset but glad to hear that I was, in fact, okay. Apparently, I had missed one important tidbit of information from our earlier conversation – that he would call me back after the wedding was over, or that I would call him. Nope, I didn’t catch that at all.

Next came the declaration that I would never stay by myself again…ever. Ever.

Didn’t sleep quite as good that night as I did the night before. But I did stay the rest of the night by myself, with Daddy’s (fully functioning) phone on my nightstand.

By the way, if you’ve tried to call me in the past few days and wonder why I haven’t called back, it’s probably because I never got your message. Perhaps your call never even came through. Took the phone by Alltel yesterday, and apparently, it’s been dropped one too many times. The rep could tell by looking inside the back. Beware of clumsiness rough phone treatment – it could have serious consequences.