Today was not what I thought it would be at all.

I had put in some extra hours at the newspaper so I got to take off early on Saturday morning. I was beat. I had dreams of napping in the early morning, spending the day playing some video games, reading Ender’s Game (Steph it’s awesome, thanks for turning me on to that), and burning some DVDs.

It was going to be a grand day.

Phase one was in action. I had just started to doze off when the phone rang. Michelle who was busy getting around for the day picked it up. It was April.

“Is Bob there?”

“I think he’s napping, can I take a message?”

“Yeah, this is sister April, if he could call me back later, that would be great. Please tell him it’s an emergency.”

“Emergency? I’ll wake him up right now.”

April, you kill me.

To make a long story short my parents were in an accident and my mom was in the hospital in Goshen. April had no idea what was going on, my dad called upset, said that mom was in the hospital and totaled the car.

A minute and a half later Michelle and I were in the car and on our way to Goshen.

It’s interesting the things that go through your mind as you picture the worst you can imagine based on the information you’ve heard.

The Probe is a little gold spot on the highway some where. Mom is under going emergency surgery. Dad is possibly injured as well.

Your body is tense. You’re angry. You’re angry because you are scared. You are rushing out into a situation of which you are blindly ignorant of any of the details.

Several minutes later I was able to get a hold of April again to drag more details out of her. This time around I had more time to dig and get to the truth of the matter. Dad called, he was upset, so upset that he handed the phone to mom. Ah, well, that changes things. No longer was mom rushed into surgery, she was in good enough health that she could talk on the phone.

Tension eases. Blood pressure goes down.

In the end the car wasn’t that bad, just the front clip was damaged. Two houses down from where my parents live a guy pulled out in front of them and dad whacked him (it was the other guys fault since he had a stop sign). Mom and struck the dashboard hard enough to leave part of it on her pants and they were concerned about her hip.

So other than a broken car, bruising, swelling and lots of pain, everyone is all right.

Several hours later, I finally returned home. Not quite the day I had imagined at all.

But then again, when are they ever?