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Save me, Superman

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"I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there... please save me, Superman!"


It's 5 am, I'm lying in my childhood bed in my childhood bedroom, staring up at the still-glowing stars I pasted on the ceiling some two decades before. My husband and sons don't arrive for hours, my brother not till the day after. It's feeling uncomfortably like it might really be 1992 again.

I send my mom a text with a question for the coming day, figuring she'll see it in the morning morning. Instead there's a loud chime from the bedroom 12 feet from mine.

"What's that?!" [alarmed!!]

"It's Sarah!" [surprise and confusion!]

"What did she say?!" [more evident confusion, processing concept of notes texted, not taped to the garage door! what is going on?!]

"She wants to move the old furniture. ... THAT'S FINE, SARAH." [yelling as though I might be very, very far away instead of close enough to hear the family dog licking himself at the foot of their bed]

"Did she tell you what else she's going to do?"

"No, she just says: [reads my text aloud]."

"Well, have you seen the room?" [very alarmed now!!]

"Do you want to just ask me," I answer back to them, "or would rather just keep speculating on your own?"

"WHY DON'T YOU TELL US?", they yell back in case I might have just now developed a hearing impairment.

"Are you going with her tomorrow to pick Jesse and the kids up at the airport?"

"I'LL BE FINE," I yell, not sure how far sound travels here.

"She's so tired, she needs someone to go with her."

"I CAN HEAR YOU!" I yell, burying my head under the covers.

Save me, SUPERMAN!

The author... in bed... under glowing star stickers... 
wearing the glasses she wore in 1990.

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