Which Way Did She Go????

Late Sunday (yesterday) afternoon, early evening, we had a bit of a dilemma here in my household. Seems somehow or other my daughter, Mandy, had become lost. No one seemed to have a clue either as to where she'd gone.

Here's how it all happened.

I was here - right where I am right now - assuming my "normal" position, hunched over the keyboard, or reading blogs and e-mails off the monitor in front of me. Needless to say, I was yes, in my own little world. The only things that generally disrupt me when I am in this place are the phone, loud cries from the playpen behind me at times, or the tugging of little hands on mine insisting on getting her a "chrink" (translated that means a drink of either "Strawberry milk" or some other substance -usually referred to as "the green" which means ginger ale, or her latest addition to the demands now being to go with her to the bathroom to see what wonders she has done. Ok, I interrupt my regularly scheduled programming for a while each day to cook supper too but at the time this took place, supper was history.

The phone rang and the 16-year-old answered it. Since she didn't come hand the receiver to me, I assumed (correctly too) that the caller didn't want to speak to me. After a few words, Katie asked me if I knew where Mandy was and I said "Not offhand but I'm sure she's here someplace." At that, I saw Kate head to the stairs, heard her go up the steps, come back down and tell the caller that Mandy wasn't here.

I asked her then who had been calling, looking for Mandy and she said it was her Dad on the phone. Hmmm. Now this sent red flags up to me that Kate hadn't been able to locate Mandy and had told her Dad that she wasn't here but that neither of us knew where Mandy was because, you see, Bill tends to get a little bit uptight if Mandy is out someplace and no one knows where she might be. Ok, I do too but not quite in the same manner or for the same reasons as he has to be upset. He isn't majorly jealous -it's not a really bad thing - but because he's been burned before he's still nursing a bit of a tendency to worry about those things although Mandy isn't prone to be out running around on him so he really doesn't need to think about stuff like that.

But anyway, that's a bit of digression there but still, it did stoke my curiosity because I couldn't remember Mandy telling me she was going anywhere and generally, if she leaves she shows me the courtesy of letting me know where she's heading. Because Bill had wanted to speak to her, I thought maybe he needed something and I should see where she was to let her know he wanted to talk to her. So I asked Kate if Mandy's vehicle was here.

No, it turned out Kate knew where Mandy's car was as her dad had taken it. Ok, then I asked if any other vehicles were missing and Kate said no, all the rest of them where all here, where they were supposed to be. So, that got me to thinking that perhaps Mandy had gone over to our neighbors, two doors from here, to visit a bit with her friend, Karen. So, I called and asked Karen if Mandy might possibly be there and she said no, she hadn't seen her. Now, this was strange and I'm wondering where the heck she might be but Karen suggested perhaps Mandy had just gone next door to talk to our other neighbor, Deb. So, I called Deb and she hadn't seen her either.

I asked Kate then if she had looked upstairs - Kate has that tendency that seems to affect all kids, especially teenagers, when you ask them to look for something, they look at the ceiling -for whatever reason, I have no clue, but that's what they do, that's where they will generally look.

Kate said she had called out for Mandy and I asked her where she'd been when she did that and she said "In the dining room." Now, the dining room is in the middle of the house and anyone who can hear someone calling their name in other regions of the house when the caller is in the dining room - well, they'd better have their radar turned up really, REALLY high or they'll never hear the caller!

So I went to the stairs and called up the steps for Mandy. Lo and behold, I received an answer too. Seems she was upstairs, laying down in the dark on her bed, trying to rest a bit to avoid getting a big old nasty migraine so of course, being there, she'd never heard Kate's call for her and when Kate went upstairs, because the light wasn't on in Mandy's room, she never looked in there nor did she call out Mandy's name upstairs either!

So the mystery was solved but not without a whole lot of confusion too and a whole lot of head shaking because this kid just doesn't grasp the process of elimination when looking for anything - be it a person or an item either for that matter.

Ah, the joys of having a teenager in the house abound as much as does the fun of dealing with a four-year-old imp and an 18-month old who spends the bulk of his day where I KNOW where he is - safe and sound in the playpen!

Maybe I should just get one great big fenced in area directly behind me for all the rest of the family to camp out. Yeah, right!