Worrywart

Note to self: While 3M offers genius solutions to a great many things, it is not always, as previously believed, a fail safe.

Before I start this post, Internets, I have a confession I have to get off of my chest. And when I say Internets, I really mean mom, I don't always sleep at my house.

Wow. Where do we go from here. Would you believe that I, an almost 32-year-old adult, actually worried about making that admission. Well, I did. Years of Catholic guilt and rhetoric to blame.

I'm a worrier. That's what I do. It's what I've always done. Last night as I was going to bed (at not my house), I was worrying about several inconsequential things, but worrying nonetheless. Mr. McMichael, a very even-keeled non-worrier type tried to talk me out of my ridiculous worries (and deep down that made me worry that all of my worrying would be a deal breaker in his mind. Oh, what's a worrisome girl to do?!).

My mind finally subsided, and I was getting good sleep, until my phone rang. A call in the middle of the night? That's definitely a worrier's lament. Discombobulated, I tried my hardest to gather my wits, pick it up, and answer it, but that was apparently beyond my 2:00 AM abilities. When I finally sorted myself out, I realized it was a call from the Marinara Jar. Worry set in. Why would he be calling me at 2:00 in the morning? Should I call him back? Was it just an accidental pocket dialing? I laid back down, and the phone rang again.

Worry.

This time I answered it. Apparently, I had not removed him from my security system's emergency contact list, like I had previously intended to do. He received a call from the security company (why I didn't register the call they gave me, I have no idea). There was an alarm incident in my house, the "glass break" sensor was activated in the back of the house near the kitchen. He authorized the cops to go check it out, as it likely meant someone broke a window trying to get into my house.

At this point a giant pit grew in my stomach and a string of words worthy of a mouth washing spewed out of my mouth. It looked like it was time to drive back home. Accompanied by Mr. McMichael. I worried my little self all along the way. As we drove, the early morning freeways were relatively empty, except for a handful of cops and the late night prey they had managed to pull over. As I was exiting one freeway to get onto another, a car came right up behind me, turned it's headlights off and then on again. Worry. What was this car trying to tell me? I wasn't speeding, in fact I wasn't doing anything illegal. In spite of my desire to get home as fast as I could, I was driving quite practically and defensively. But as I pulled onto the on-ramp, the tell tale red and blue lights began to flash. A second string of words worthy of a mouth washing rolled right off the tongue and I pulled over.

Are you serious?

I was incredulous, but worried. What did I do to warrant a pull over at 2:30 in the morning. The cop approached my window and asked for my license and insurance. A little flustered, because, "Hello, some stranger may be in my house right now!" I told the cop that I was on my way home because apparently someone was trying to break into it, oh, and by the way, why are you pulling me over?

I think he was a little shocked by that--and also to find that I wasn't a drunk driver crawling home from a bar--he told me that I had some taillights out. Which then made me worry about that. How could that be, I replaced them all just under a year ago (for the first time in the 8 years I've had the car). He took my license walked back to his car, walked right back to my car and wished me luck at my house.

Mr. McMichael and I pulled up to my house and all seemed fine. There were no cops there, so he headed to the back of the house to see if he could see any broken windows. They all appeared to be in tact. Worry. Where were the cops? What really happened here to set off the alarm.

We went back to the front, got in the house, and found it just as I had left it (admittedly quite messy). The good thing about this was that the worry I had about the cops being in my house with it in the shape I left it was immediately put to rest. As we made our way to the back room, we found the purp--a 3m picture hook that had lost its adhesiveness. And the victim, the glass frame of a family portrait.

Additional worries I lost at this point: the worry that I would need to sell my house and move to a safer neighborhood, the worry that I wouldn't be able to sleep alone in my house, the worry that nobody would buy my house after they read the police blotter that it had been broken into, the worry that I'd have to patch up a window at 2:30 in the morning when I was really really tired, the worry that all of these worries crowding everything out of my brain and might make me completely lose my cool, the worry that maybe I worry too much.

Although, that last one may still be haunting me.

Oh, and one more worry quelled, none of my tail lights are out. Grumble. Thank you, ociffer.