Today, instead of Sunday night dinner, we planned Sunday brunch at 12:30pm at Edgar’s, a cafe on Amsterdam Avenue between 91st and 92nd Street.  SOB and HOSOB live around the corner.

It is well established old people always arrive early and then get impatient.  Dad is always 30-45 minutes early (“Dad time”).  And then, operating on Dad time, Dad gets impatient to move onto the next activity at the very moment we were scheduled to gather in real world time.  So, if you arrive on time in real world time (and not on Dad time), you might as well take your food to go.  Generally, we all arrive on Dad time because it is really unpleasant if Dad is asking for the check before we’ve ordered.

We arrive late for Dad time, at 12:15pm.  No one was there.  Dad is NEVER late (no, Daylight Savings Time is NEVER a factor).  So, he is either dead or in an ER.  And SOB wasn’t there, either.  Clearly, she was rushing to the scene of my father’s demise.  You think I am being histrionic.   I am, but this is how blogger family views the world.

I called SOB from my cell phone.  I am so used to calling from anywhere and having people answer a call from anywhere, that I don’t think about where a person might be when I call.  I usually ask, “are you in the midst?” just like my mother would ask, to give the person a graceful way to put off a phone conversation if necessary.  But not today.  Dad was missing and presumed terminal.

I reached SOB.

“Where are you? Where is Dad?”

“We’re here.  Dad arrived early.  We are just sitting.”

“I don’t see you,” as I look furtively around the small cafe.  “Where are you?”

“[Blogger], you called me at home.  I am here at home.  We’ll be over in 5 minutes.”

Ooooops.  In my stressed state, my fingers automatically dialed her home number (as in,  a land line), rather than her cell.

Who remembered there was such a thing?