By April ebejer
Hello, hello,hello…. How you doing ?
Welcome to & back
It’s a lovely Tuesday morning at my current location, a cool sweet morning…
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I woke up to the crazy ringtone I had thought was so funny yesterday afternoon. Turns out at 3:00 AM, it’s the most annoying ringtone in the world. I blindly reached for the phone and wondered how my “Do Not Disturb” had allowed anyone to disturb my sleep. I mean, going to bed at midnight and waking up at 3:00, wasn’t my idea of fun.
The caller ID showed my mom’s picture. I sat up in the bed and forced myself to wake up. “Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“I stole something,” my mom wailed into the phone. “I can’t believe I didn’t give it back. You’ve got to help me, Dee.”
If my mom didn’t sound so distraught, I would have laughed. My mom wouldn’t take a bottle of travel size shampoo from a hotel room unless she had used it. There was no way she had stolen anything.
I listened to her sobbing softly on the other end of the line. “Mom, take a breath, and tell me what happened,” I said calmly. “It couldn’t be that bad.”
“Yes, yes it is,” she said with a sob. “I can’t believe I still have it.”
“What?”
“I borrowed a book from the library, and it’s so late. I know they think I did it on purpose, but I didn’t.”
“Well, why don’t you just return it and pay the fine? When was it due?
I heard the rattle of paper, probably the receipt.
“It was due March 3rd.”
“That’s not so bad, just a couple of weeks.”
“1997.”
“What?”
“I said March 3rd 1997.”
I was silent. Was my mom trying to tell me she was upset about not returning a book that was over 24 years past due?
“Look, Mom. I don’t think you have to worry about it,” I finally said. “I’m sure the library wrote that book off a long time ago. They probably replaced it too.”
“Dee, I’ve got to return it and pay the fine.”
“So, you’re going to mail it?”
My mom sniffed. “Dee, could you return it for me?”
I muted the phone and heavy sighed. I unmuted the phone. “Sure, send it to me then.”
“Couldn’t you come get it and take it back?”
Clearly my mom didn’t understand what she was asking. “Mom, wouldn’t it be faster to mail it? Why do I need to drive to Oklahoma City just to pick up a past due book and bring it back to Michigan?”
“Please Dee.”
I needed my sleep, and my mom wasn’t going to let me get any. “Fine,” I said. “When should I come?”
“Come tomorrow.”
“That’s really short notice. I have to let my boss know.”
“Tell them it’s a family emergency.”
I REALLY wanted to point out that an overdue library book would never fly as an emergency unless it was used as a murder weapon or something. But I didn’t say that. Not to Mom.
“Fine.” …
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Find out what happened next
Source: Blog.Reedsy
Enjoy 🙂
Just really excited to share with you this lovely story and the site I read most of me short stories from …
