The rescue of Bug

Today, I called home on break and was greeted by my oldest boy.
As I greeted him cheerily--cause you know I love work!--his response struck fear in my heart.
"Mama, I'm scared."
"Bug? What are you scared of? Where is your daddy?"
Whine.
"Where are you?"
"Up high."
"Did you climb a tree?'
"No."
"Where are you?" My voice was increasingly becoming more shrewish as visions of broken boys danced in my head.
"On a shelf. In the garage."
"DON'T MOVE! Where's your daddy?" I screamed. So much for reassuring him it was fine and handling a crisis in a calm, controlled manner. Nope, not my style. I shot straight to panic and skrieking.
"Mowing."
Okay, I had one of those moments when I had to sit down because I just couldn't handle standing up any longer. All of the shelves in our garage are high, and we have a hard concrete floor guaranteed to result in a trip to the emergency room and a cast or two.
My uterus clenched, my heart rate quickened, and I saw spots flashing before my eyes. I think I even had full on vapors.
My baby was in danger--yes, because of his own stupidity, but mama hormones don't care. At that moment. Later, I'm sure I would care.
Anyway, back to the story. I'm sure you are rivetted.
"Here's Boo."
Great. Bug handed me off to his brother, I guess assuming that the 3 1/2 year old was the cavalry. Bad assumption. Child has never heard of sibling rivalry or culling the herd. Boo's probably just looking for the chance to move on up to number one child. We're a survival of the fittest kind of family.
Pulling back from detour.
"Boo. Where's Daddy?" As if I hadn't already gotten that answer.
"Mowing."
"GO GET HIM NOW!"
I swear I heard the sound of him settling in to watch the ensuing chaos. I think he even popped a brewski.
So, while on the phone with Boo, I'm speed dialing my neighbor.
"Mr. R. I'm sorry to call you but I have Bug on the other line and he's in the garage and stuck on a shelf and The Man is out mowing and I don't know what else to do!"
Mr. R (whose known me all my life and whom I genuinely adore), replied, "Well, darlin', I see the Man in the front yard. but I'll go find Bug and make sure he's okay."
"Oh thank you!"
Right at this time, Boo got tired of talking and said, "bye, mama," and hung up.
So i tried calling back.
Four times.
Until I had to call my neighbor and have the wonderful Mrs. R (who bakes my kids yummy cookies) call over that the phone was off the hook.
I finally heard a wonderful ringing sounds, only to be answered, "Hello, little darlin'. He's fine. He just got himself stuck. We're all all right now."
I love that man.
Which, right now, is more than I can say about my own husband, who waited for what he thought was the cooling down period to call me.
It wasn't. I was still lit.
My umbilical cord is stretched tight and I was two seconds from leaving work to rescue my child and he calls me doing a guilty chuckle.
When my foot finally gets out of his ass, he may be able to sit down.
But I doubt he'll be chuckling any time soon.