Surprise!!!

We had a great evening this past Saturday. It was my friend Suzie’s surprise 50th birthday party and we pulled it off without a hitch. Great friends, lots of laughs and as an added bonus, we were in Lawrence: God’s country.



We wrapped things up around 11p.m., dropped our friend Diane off on our way home and pulled in our driveway just before midnight. Mikey had mentioned a few minutes earlier that our timing was perfect since we would be getting home right around Jordan’s curfew. At seventeen (going on twenty-eight), we always visit with her when she gets home from a night out just to make sure things are on the up and up. Boy Howdy!


Beating her home by just a few minutes, I ran up and put my jammies on before coming back down to wait for her with Mike while catching some late-night TV. And that folks was the beginning of the end of our peaceful, easy evening…


12:05a.m.: I am annoyed. Back in the day… we were smart enough to beat our curfew by a few minutes; call it common courtesy. And besides, it kept the rents happy and was no skin off our nose… as long as our nose was fairly clean!


12:10a.m.: I am pissed. Really Jordan? Ten minutes late and no phone call or text; my inner chatterbox is taking away privileges as fast as I can think of them.


12:15a.m.: Because we “Sprint family mapped” her and saw that she was very close to home, I deduced she was at our backdoor neighbor’s house… home of her “college friend” who is back for Thanksgiving break. Fury is fast approaching and when I share my suspicion with Mike, he drives off in the car to fetch her sorry-ass up!


12:20a.m: Mike returns sans Jordan. There is no sign of life going on over there he informs me and I should map her again. Same friggin result. I am certain at this point there is some illicit partying going on down in their basement and I am ready to live up to my reputation as “Mama-Buzz kill”. White-pages dot com and presto, I have their home number to call.


Mikey makes the call, it goes something like this: “Hi Mr. Back-door neighbor, this is Jordan’s dad, Mike. I apologize for calling at this late hour and waking you, but can you tell me if Jordan is over at your house? No? Well is Kelly home? Yes? Would you mind waking her up and letting me talk to her, we can’t locate Jordan, she is not answering any of our texts or phone calls and we are very concerned... this is out of character for her.” About a minute later… “Hi Kelly, this is Mike Baker. Do you know where Jordan is?” She did not, and Mike asked her to please call regardless of the time if she hears anything, yada-yada.


12:25a.m.: I am vibrating, I am so mad. Mike is rattling things off like, “Tomorrow morning we take the Landcruiser and park it at my office, she has NO car starting NOW! Do NOT buy her ANYTHING for six months… I mean nothing! She’s going to JuCo!” Suffice it to say we were both of the same mindset, and it was less than pleasant.


12:30a.m.: Sirens. Loud sirens. Getting closer kind of sirens.   I am immediately paralyzed by fear; all my anger leaves me and is replaced with prayer. Out loud, down on my knees prayer.


12:35a.m.: Slight meltdown as sirens continue. Not crying, but definitely pacing and freaking out. I have such a strong feeling that something is very, very wrong… that I actually go take my jammies off and put clothes back on.


12:40a.m.: Messages and texts left on Jordie’s phone no longer have anger or consequences in them, just pleads to call us: “You are not in trouble baby, we are worried sick, please, please call, we’ll come get you.”


12:45a.m.: White-pages.com supplies me with yet another much needed landline number. “Hello Mr. B? This is Chris Baker, Jordan’s mom. I am so sorry to wake you at this hour but is Jordan over there? No? Is Ana home? What time did she get home? Wow, a few minutes after eleven, would you mind waking her up so I can find out if she has any idea where Jordan might be? Thank you so much.”


A minute or so goes by and I hear Mr. B talking softly to Ana. “Well when was the last time you saw or heard from Jordan, Ana”, I heard him ask. I struggled to hear her sleepy answer…


Wait for it… wait for it…


“When I dropped her home a little before 11p.m.”...


Oh. My. God.

OMG, OMG, OMG… It never friggin occurred to us to look in her bedroom. I thanked Mr. B, told him we would keep them posted then ran to Jordie’s room. I could make out a lump in the bed through the darkness and started screaming to Mike… “She’s home, she’s home, she’s home!”


“Where? What do you mean?” he says.

“She is sound asleep in her bed!” I yelled.


I don’t think his feet hit one stair on the way up. He flicked on her light and clearly relieved, yelled (in his big-boy voice)…. “JORDAN!" Her sleeping blue eyes popped wide open and without moving her head so much as an inch, they darted back and forth from Mike to me and back to Mike. “What?” she said quietly, obviously confused.

Absolute dead silence followed. I mean really… that was the million-dollar question… “what?”. It seemed as if time stood still when Mikey finally muttered, “Did you have a good time tonight”?


1. a.m.: We kiss the little darling goodnight, tell her to sleep tight and slink backwards out of her room; we cannot even look at each other. “A plan, a plan, we need a plan” I finally plead with him. “No way” he says. This is a bus-chucking moment and I am chucking you under it; dog-eat-dog baby, you should have checked her bed”.


1:02a.m.: I pop an ambien, hoping this whole mess might elude Jordan from ever finding out what freakazoids she has for parents.


5:30a.m.: “DAD… what the heck is going on? I have 72 missed calls and about a million text messages, everyone is asking where I am and if I’m ok.” Apparently, our little over-reaction the night before went viral. We’re lucky there wasn’t a damn Amber Alert!


I pry my eyes open as the pit in my stomach returns for an encore.  I struggle to read the clock and when my fuzzy eyes finally focus, I realize… it was exactly twelve hours ago that our evening of fun began. So in keeping with the spirit of the night, I look at Jordan and say… “Surprise”!!!


And one more MOTY award slips away…