How do YOU react in a crisis?

"I've been in a car accident".

It was my husband on the line, over five years ago.

(He was fine. The car was not.)

I thought he was joking. "No," he said "I need the insurance company's phone number."

And even then, I still said "You've got to be joking. You're kidding me right?"

I didn't want to believe it. If I denied it, it wasn't true, right? 

How naive I was! 

Last week I did much better.

"I broke my nose".

It was my husband on the line again. And this time I fully believed him. 

"Oh dear. Where are you now?" I asked.

(It appears he'll be okay, with a kind of straight nose).

Who knew basketball could be such a dangerous sport??

This reminds me of the two times I saw pretty fireworks in the microwave.  

The first time was at my mother's house. 

Somebody had left their fork on their plate while warming up their food.

The ensuing sparks lit a fire under my mom's feet.  She jumped and danced and hollered and sang that there was a fire in the microwave and "somebody dooo something!" It was very entertaining to my brothers, one of whom I believe finally followed my shouted orders to 'open the microwave door already' and went to stop the show.

The second time was at my mother-in-law's house.

Somebody had left their food in tin foil while warming it up.

My mother-in-law calmly told them that their food was lighting up and they needed to take the tin foil off the food before they put it in the microwave, then turned and continued what she was doing.

"Wow!" I thought. "That was calm. What a difference from last time I saw fireworks in the microwave. I wonder which way I react?"

I've since had the chance to find out. Two years ago, my family rented two houses on the beach.

My siblings, my mother and I (I'm in the middle)
Some of us are chill, some of us are spaz.
Once again, I fall somewhere in the middle. 

In the wee hours of the last morning that we were there, I heard somebody hollering from down the hall that the house next door (the one my sister and her boys were sleeping in) was on fire!

I leapt out of bed, tore down the hall, ran past a couple people, ran out the door, down the stairs, and down the sidewalk, thinking only of the boys, those two little boys. There on the sidewalk was my sister and her boys, waiting for the firemen to give them the all clear. "We're fine," she said "but cold. Could someone please bring us a blanket already?!" (the flames were in the ancient heating system in the hall and thankfully did not spread).

Back in our rental house, (and I still get the chuckles just thinking about this) my mother was still flapping and  half-asleep, my brother was standing by the door waiting for something, perhaps for someone to stick the blanket in his hands to bring my sister, and everybody else was just peeking their heads out their doors, bleary-eyed and wondering what the commotion was all about. And my family?? My children were still sound asleep at the end of the hall and my hubby had long since determined it was nothing to get worked up about and roller back over.

Perhaps he had witnessed the microwave fireworks incident in my mother's house and knew my family.

Perhaps he takes after his own mother.