Putting on my Mom hat

Friday, 1:53 pm

By Kate

Mar

07

2008

A couple of nights ago, my cell phone rang at 3:00 AM. Normally, I’d ignore it and put my head under the pillow. But this was the lad’s distinctive ring and it penetrated all brain fog and I was instantly awake.

“Mom,” he wailed, “I’m so screwed.”

You can imagine the thoughts galloping through my mind.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“No, I’m not,” he said. “I finished my big Daisy Miller paper for class in the morning and I lost it. It’s gone.”

He calmed down enough to explain…

He has this strange habit of writing his papers as an email. When they’re finished, he mails them to himself so that they’re safe. I think he started doing this after a hard drive crash and lost other work. It’s probably not a bad system.

In any case...at 2:00-ish in the morning his brain was a bit foggy, too. And when he addressed the email, he sent it to daisy@....

Just as he pushed the send button, he realized what he did. Panic. He waited to see if it would bounce back, but it didn’t. Somewhere, there’s a Daisy wondering why the heck she got that email from a perfect stranger, I’ll bet.

He tried to recreate the paper from his notes and it just wasn’t going very well. His panic levels were now off the charts.

So, I was thinking...the original is still on the server. It shouldn’t be lost.

“Sweetie, have you checked your sent mail folder?”

“Ummmm. Oh crap. No, I didn’t. I didn’t even think about that.”

“Well, check and see. It should be there.”

We chatted a bit while he walked back to his dorm room and plugged back into the system. The next words out of his mouth were, “Oh, I love you Mom. It’s there.”

Now that I was wide awake, he sent it to me, too. It was an enjoyable read. I can see why he’d be panicked to think he lost it. Good paper and well written.

So, I guess his system does work. Even with minor glitches. And it was really nice being able to fix my boy’s panic, too. For sure. I don’t get that opportunity very often anymore.