Something's Not Right

On Thursday, I decided not to call my friend to confirm that she would be bringing Big Girl home from theater camp, because she had been doing it for seven straight days and I didn't want to be an annoying pest.

When they were about 10 minutes late, I was starting to worry.

When they were 20 minutes late, I called her cell phone.

She was picking up her younger daughter from school and taking her to the pediatrician. She had called her husband to ask him to call the theater camp and tell them to send her older daughter to Extended Care, but she had forgotten about my daughter.

I quickly hung up and ran out the door to get my Big Girl. When I got there, both girls were there waiting, and had long been the only children left. I told the two adults who were waiting with them what had happened, and they said they had not gotten a call about Friend's Daughter.

The Extended Care children had already gone over to the theater to help with the work being done over there, so everyone agreed it would be better for Friend's Daughter to come home with me.

When I got home with both girls, I called both Friend (left a message) and Friend's Husband to tell them where their oldest child was.

After a couple of hours, Friend's Husband came to pick up Friend's Daughter.
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I've written about this dispassionately, but at the time, I was full of emotion. Seething might cover it. I tried not to let the girls see it.

Mostly I was mad at myself, because I should know better than to trust this particular friend. She flakes out on me more than she comes through, lately. There's always some drama going on. The Hubby was so angry when he got home and heard the story. Then he said, "something is not quite right with her lately. Do you think she is okay?"

I really have no idea - I never see her anymore. When I have her kids over, hoping she'll stay for a little while for a chat, it turns out to be her husband who shows up, drops them off, and says "I'll be back in a few hours."
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The two families went out for pizza together last night, so the kids could spend some time together before we leave for our month in Oregon. I felt that the adults needed a normal dinner together at this time, so I didn't have the kind of serious discussion with her that I think we need to have at some point. But one interesting thing happened: she said that she found out from her sister that her mom was worried that something was wrong with her because she had slept a lot during her recent visit to her mom's house. At that point, her husband said that her mom had said the same thing to him. She thought it was funny, because she has two kids so of course she's tired. The Hubby and I shared glances, though.

Oh, and she did apologize about forgetting my daughter, including during that first phone call. But she didn't seem to realize what a big deal it might be to me that my daughter was waiting around there, forgotten. NOT. OKAY. Her kids may be used to that sort of thing, but I don't do that to mine. Now I am kicking myself again about not calling before pick-up time to confirm! It was the first day that I didn't make that phone call, of course.
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Tonight is the theater camp performance. Big Girl has to wear her hair in rollers all day, so I'm about to go set them. We're all packing and getting ready for our trip today, then will go see the show tonight.

Our plan is to leave in the morning...