We were about 3 days into our Westward Journey, and on the longest (12 hour) leg of our trip from Brookings South Dakota to Buffalo Wyoming, and had been having wonderful weather. I'm pretty sure I had remarked about our luck the whole way, since I was used to mid winter cross country jaunts. Anyway, about 60 miles from Buffalo, our luck finally changed. High on a wyoming plateau, we could see our challenge miles ahead of us and rapidly approaching. It was a black wall of clouds, with the preceding winds swirling ominously at us. The land was desolate and the clouds were unnerving and there was nothing in between them. The cloud hit us just like a midwestern rainstorm does- a sheet of solid water. Despite feeling the urgency that one feels at the end of a 12 hour day on the road, I pulled over at one of wyoming's interstate "exits" (it's literally a 90 degree turnoff- interesting to execute at 75 mph). And we waited it out. It dispersed a bit, and I felt confident that the drama of our road trip was over.
Well, weatherwise, it was! But what otherwise ensued was what I consider to be a bonafied sherlock holmes novel.
Safely in buffalo, and after a good night's sleep, I woke up and prodded around, brushed my teeth, packing, unpacking, repacking, prepared for a more relaxed day, and heard my phone ring. I sidled over some bags, and picked it up, preparing for a morning check in with my mom. When I picked up, she sounded totally agonized. I felt my heart jump to my throat- I thought that someone had died!! I figured, given her obvious shock, that it was either my dad or my brother- or else my dog although I was't even sure if zeus warranted this kind of upset (sorry zeus).
"Are you okay!?!?!" my mom choked.
"yes...." I replied, confused.
Well, it turns out that it was me who was supposedly lying ill in a hospital in Cheyenne, Wyoming. A Captain from the US Air Force, and some other dastardly lieutenant, had called my mom's private line (which no one but my family knows), the evening that I arrived in Buffalo, saying that "her daughter" was having seizures and in a coma at the hospital in Cheyenne.
My first reaction to all of this was to laugh (out of relief!), I was FINE! Everyone was fine!! I was having PANCAKES! The world was okay!! But it made me so sad to know that my parents had been in such a grievous state- and it made me pissed off!! Who the hell did this to my family? And who the hell knew that I was in Wyoming, of all of the places that I almost never am? And how did they get the number? I immediately thought of facebook as a perpetrator of my whereabouts- and wondered if my cell phone had somehow been hacked. I was pretty set on believing that the airforce people were phony- how would a government body be so stupid as to mess up something so simple as an emergency contact? I rushed onto the computer and changed my passwords, set every privacy setting that I knew, and contemplated the creepiness of social media. But it still didn't make sense.
According to my mom, the captain had referred to me as "her daughter" (not by my name) and had said that my mom was this woman's (whoever she was) emergency contact. WTF? Had someone stolen my parent's information and used it to get into the Air Force?? This was a thought that crossed my mind.
Well, I wont keep your undies in a bunch about the conclusion. The mysery woman as it turns out, was legitimately in the airforce. She was from San diego california. A year or so ago, she had come across my brother's cell phone in her parent's restaurant in San Diego, and had stolen or taken (this is in dispute), the phone. Despite a possible change in the sim card, the phone had stored the old numbers, and when the Air Force searched for "mom" they found my mom instead of hers. And both this girl and I so happened to be in Wyoming when this girl's health took a dive. The odds of so many coincidences stacking up is ridiculous, the kind of thing that, as my mom said, "makes you think you should play the lotto." No kidding.
I'm mad at the Air Force- how could they be so stupid to refer to a cell phone rather than to legitimate paperwork in a time of such desperation for a family. And then to put undo distress on my family. We have already suffered our share of loss. I think the weirdest thing about it, though, is to have had a brief glimpse into a world where my own life was in peril. I don't take my life for granted, and tend not to live recklessly, but I see more purpose in those aims now. It is not just for myself that I take these measures. I do it for the people who love me, too.
Anyway, the mystery of the imposter thankfully unraveled itself in short order (although I'm sure to my parents it seemed like a lifetime). I am alive and healthy. Hopefully my parents will recover without too much anguish. But I won't forget this for as long as I live.
Love,
Zoe
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