The Call

So!  There we were, at the zombie race (see last week’s post.)  The last stretch of the 5K involved walls to climb over, lumber things to crawl through, barbed wire thingies to scrabble under, and a wooden slide thing to climb up and slide down on the other side.  You plunged into a very very cold pool of muddy water, and you climbed out of that, did some more obstacles, dodge more zombies, and eventually staggered to the end.

We did all that, and then we went to the lake to rinse off.  Then we changed out of the wet gross clothes, into the dry clothes.  Got something to drink, got something to eat.  Met up with friends, exchanged war stories.  Laughed a lot.

And then we wanted to shift into a role as spectators.  So we headed over to the slide thing, to cheer the other runners as they were staggering through.

And it was there, cheering on a group of very beautiful muddy Disney Cruise line employees in red tank tops, that my cell rang in my back pocket.

It was my mother.  My father was in the hospital. 

And as the screams of the other runners continued to ring out in the background as they continued to go down the slide, continued to hit the water, my mother explained that things were… not great.

No, they were not great at all.

And now they are over.

(Continued next week)