Unlike the past few years, both Dee Dee and Audio managed to stay healthy and avoided missing school due to sickness through the first sixteen weeks of the school year.  On the last Tuesday before Winter Break was to start, Audio didn’t feel well, but we took her temperature and she did not have a fever, and didn’t want to stay home.  So, we played out our normal morning routine and I walked both girls to school 

A couple hours after leaving the girls at school, I got a call from my wife who told me that the school was trying to reach me because Audio was in the nurse’s office with a fever and needed to be picked up and brought home.  I had been downstairs in the laundry room with the washer and dryer running while my phone was charging upstairs.  Apparently, the school nurse tried calling me and got my voice mail.  Then, she tried calling again.  When she couldn’t get a hold of me, she called my wife, who wasn’t able to answer her phone, either. 

Without being able to speak with my wife or me, the nurse called our emergency contact, which is my sister who lives two hours away.  My sister advised the nurse that she would try to get a hold of my wife.  The first time my sister called, my wife was still busy and unable to answer.  When the phone rang again a few moments later, my wife was able to pick up and got the message that Audio was ill.  Then, my wife called to let me know.  Although I was still in the basement, over the noise of the major appliances I was able to pick out the ridiculous ringtone that I have set in my phone for when my wife calls.  So, I ran upstairs and got the news that the school nurse was trying to contact me about Audio. 

I played back the message from the school nurse, and when she gave me her direct line to call her back on, the phone glitched over a couple of the numbers.  I Googled the school’s main number and then tried to match up the front office number with what I thought the nurse had said.  I dialed and got a message that the cell phone number I was calling wasn’t taking calls at this time.  I changed of the digits and dialed again.  As the phone started to ring, I received an incoming call from the previous number I’d dialed.  So, I ended the call I was on and accepted the incoming call.  An unhappy sounding woman told me that she missed a call from my number and wanted to know what I was calling about.  I explained that I had dialed the wrong number and apologized as she was hanging up on me. 

I hit redial on the second number I’d entered and got a message that the cell phone that I was calling was not connected.  While listening to the message, I realized that I’d inverted two of the digits of the prefix of the numbers I was trying to call.  I hung up, slowed down, and then accidentally redialed the first number I’d called.  Before I brought the phone to my ear, I looked at the phone’s screen to see that I’d misdialed, and was calling the unhappy lady again!  I ended the call and slowly dialed the correct number.  As I waited for someone to pick up, I braced myself for another call from the woman who I’d now called twice, but she never called back. 

I started to think that if I hadn’t bothered with the phone, I could have been half way to the school by this time and thought that I should just spend the next five minutes getting over to the school instead of wearing out my phone battery on further unintentional prank calls.  But I worried that if I didn’t let the school know that I was on my way, they would call Child Protection Services on me, or something.  Eventually, I heard the nurse’s voice.  She reported that Audio had a temperature of 102° and needed to be picked up.  I advised her that I was on my way and would be there very soon.  When I finished the conversation, I looked at the call times and realized that between the first call from the school nurse and when I ended my discussion with her, all of nine minutes had passed. 

I brought Audio home and we were able to get to a clinic before they closed.  They swabbed her nose and her throat and were able to tell us that she had a virus.  On Wednesday morning, Dee Dee wasn’t feeling one hundred percent, so to avoid causing any further problems for myself, my wife, the girls, the school nurse, my sister, and the ornery lady who I accidentally called, we decided that we would just start Winter Break a few days early.