Let the record show that on or about November 18, between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 10:57 p.m., or thereabouts, a lapse of the ever-present vigilance on the part of Mama Jan was observed.

The beginning of the series of events, which, when taken as a whole are presumed to make Mama J guilty of said lapse, occurred on November 14, around 10:00 a.m.

I will set forth the facts in the order of which they occurred, trusting that any departure from the truth will be negligible or nonexistent.

I received a phone call from the sweet daughter, as has been previously stated, around 10 o’clock on November the 14^th.  We chatted about what her day consisted of, I talked as much as conditions would allow.  I was on my way to Sublette to deposit a check, and I was driving in whiteout conditions and slick pavements.

She (the sweet daughter) was a little blue about the upcoming weeks.  Her plans consisted of flying to a church conference, after which she would fly back to New York.  The folks she normally lives with would continue on to their family after being at the same conference she was at.

Which meant she would have to drive home, in the dark, alone, to an empty house, and which also meant that she would spend Thanksgiving alone.

She was game for the challenge, as far as that goes, but it looked a little daunting.

In an effort to offer a bit of consolation, I said, “Well, at least with having your own vehicle at the airport, you have options,” although, if she would have challenged me on what I thought those options were, I would have been hard pressed to explain.

But she, being the positive thinker that she is, said, “Hey, maybe I should see if I could get permission to take a couple more days off, ride home from this conference with my friends, and surprise mom.”

I told her I thought that was a good idea, and if she could get clearance on it and was okay with paying for a ticket change, I’d do my part to help.

A day later she had permission.  Two days later she had her ticket changed.  We had four days in which to plan and to keep the lid on this thing, between the two of us.

We faced a formidable foe in the form of Mama J.  Because, well, Mama’s are mama’s for a reason I guess, and they always need to know where there children are, who has who’s name for Christmas, and what each one might be getting the other for a gift, even if they are adults. 

We laid out our battle plans carefully.

We knew our first skirmish would be the Life 360 app which all of our family is on and which gives live locations of anyone at any time.

Mama Jan keeps a steady eye on that app; it’s her way of taking care of her chillun’s.

I told the sweet daughter she would need to shut off her location sharing, maybe a day ahead, and plead excuse that it was running her battery down.  (It does run it down, for sure if you are out of your home area.)  I happened to see, early one morning, that the daughter’s location was turned off and casually mentioned to Mama J that Lex must be having battery usage issues with her phone because it looked like she had turned off her location on Life 360. 

We saw that one coming, and had it headed off at the pass before it ever made it near us.  Score for us.

The next big skirmish was how to communicate the ride to the airport.  Original plans called for the sweet daughter to spend the last night with her grandparents and they would take her to the airport.  A 20 minute drive for them.  New plans called for the daughter to stay at the motel she was at with friends and drive the 13 hours home with them. 

New plans also meant that we had to convey a sense of the journey by air whilst the journey on land was taking place.  New plans also meant that the daughter would tell Mama J she planned to spend the last night with friends instead and that they had offered her a ride.  (She purposely did not mention ‘to the airport’ when relating this bit of information to her mother.)  This information was tossed out a day early, and under a thick smokescreen of rapid-fire small talk about other things.

But her mother does Sudoku.  16 x 16 Sudoku’s in fact, since even the hardest 9 x 9 Sudoku’s are too easy.  We knew that it was a simple matter of numbers with her mother and it was only a matter of time before she called wolf on her daughter getting a ride with friends.  Because a ride with friends (supposedly to the airport) from the motel she was staying at called for a 2 hour transit time, going the wrong way for the friends, versus the 20 minute transit time with her Grandpa’s.

We trembled with uneasiness.  Would Mama J blow our cover?

The counterattack came a day later when Austin’s lovely wife stepped in the front door to get the mail.  Mama J was chatting about this and that, and then it happened. 

“I can’t figure out why Lex wouldn’t go back to my folks for night and then to the airport with them.  It’s only twenty minutes for them and it will be way out of the way for her friends to take her.” 

“Oh well, you know how girls that age are.  It’s not such a huge thing when you are having fun together,” Lindsey said. 

“I guess,” said Mama J, but she sounded a bit unconvinced.

I was so amazed at how well Linds had played her part that I made an excuse to Mama Jan as soon as she left that I needed to go check Bozar and went straight to her house.  Her mouth fell when I asked her if she knew Lex was coming home.  It was as I suspected.  She hadn’t known about the change in plans.

Knowing, at least a little, the thought process of her mother, the sweet daughter dutifully messaged her as soon as they left the motel.  “On my way,” she said, and which info was also dutifully relayed to me by her mother as soon as she was acquainted with it.

I saw her mother switch over from checking Life 360, even though she knew there was hardly a chance her daughter would turn it back on, to the Flightaware app.  I knew I could breathe easier for a little while as her attention would be used in making sure all flights were on time, following the flight path through the air, and checking the weather at the arrival airport, just like any good mother does. 

And the sweet daughter dutifully turned her phone to airplane mode during the time she was supposedly in the air and then turned it off once she landed.

But we hit a snag when Mama J discovered that Atlanta was delayed.  I held off from offering any consolation for as long as I could, it was getting tense, but then we were saved when Flightaware changed the delay to an on time status. 

I was updated throughout the day on flight status from one female and road status from the other.  The other female knew better than to use Whatsapp, because her Mother would see when she was last seen, so she switched to texting.

It was late in the afternoon when the sweet daughter messaged to say they were probably going to stop for Indian food in Wichita, which we both knew would delay her arrival considerably.

And . . . we both knew we were nearing zero hour when the daughter would land in New York, and Mama J would want location turned back on, because she always has it turned on over there. 

If they would have kept on time and not stopped in Wichita, we knew the time from when she ‘landed’ in New York until when she actually walked in the patio door here was short enough, and we might be able to swing it.

Now, it was a matter of meeting the battle as it came to us and on its terms.

I suggested to the sweet daughter that she video call her Mom and break the news to her before it got too late, but she said she wanted to continue with her original plan for as long as possible.

She parried off with a message to her mother as soon as she ‘landed’ that she was okay.  She said she was going to get something to eat and then if she got tired on the way ‘home’ she would call to stay awake.  She also said she would let us know when she got home.  (This last obviously, just maybe in a different way than Mama J was expecting.)

Of course, being the good Mama she is and all, her Mother messaged her a time or two on her ‘drive’ home in New York.  But we almost bit the dust when the daughter forgot and left her phone in the vehicle when she went in to eat Indian at Wichita.  Her mother wasn’t getting any replies to her messages and started going ballistic. 

I tried sending one to her myself, telling her she was going to need to say something or else we were up in smoke.  It was a bit later she was back in the vehicle and realized her mistake.

She quickly messaged her mother, telling her she had gotten something to eat, and was going to try to get some sleep.  According to New York time, she was at home now and would be going to bed to get this sleep, although by now it was Kansas road time again and she was safe in trying to get some sleep while the rest drove.

She wanted the dogs penned up so they wouldn’t bark when she got home and so she could see her beloved Taz on her own terms.  I mentioned to her mother that as cold as it was going to be that night, it might not be a bad idea just to pen the dogs.  Her mother agreed and even got up and penned the dogs herself, unknowingly.

The daughter messaged me soon after saying ETA would be 10:53 p.m. 

I knew we couldn’t stay up because that was later than we had been getting to bed, so I soon said I would go to bed, and my good wife followed. 

I fell asleep for a bit, but awakened around 10:50 and saw I had a couple of messages from my friend Caden, sending me some songs they had sung. 

“Perfect timing,” I thought, realizing that my good wife hadn’t fallen asleep yet.

I played those messages, quite a bit louder than I normally do, to cover any outside noise, even though my good wife claims now that she heard something out in the yard in spite of all that.

I heard the patio door quietly close.

In seconds, I heard, more than saw, our bedroom door open. 

And then the lights flashed on.

And there stood the sweet daughter, as real as life.

Mama J raised up from her pillow on her elbows and squinted in the glare of light.

“What the world,” she muttered.  I could tell the truth hadn’t dawned yet, being too early in the night for that.

She rose up again from her pillow.  (My song messages continued to serenade us.)

“What the world,” disbelieving.

“What the world,” slight panic.

“What the world,” believing, yet not believing.

“What the world!” Full belief.

A huge hug.

“What in the world.”

As recorded earlier, let the record show that a lapse occurred, on or about November 18, between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 10:57 p.m., in which Mama Jan’s unswerving vigilance for her children was in the wrong place at the wrong time and said vigilance was therefore lacking upon the individual mentioned heretofore.