Let me know if you are going to be home late

With only about 8 hours left to end what has been one of my most yo-yo weekends in recent history, and completely in keeping with espirit de tempest, I have a few observations:-

1. Ahoy there, male species! The cellphone is not a tracker device. It is a communication device. You comprehend, ja- communication? Where you call to let someone know that you decided to turn back on the highway or that you won't be home for lunch. Trust us, we don't really care where you are, we just want to know that it is not in a mangled heap under a truck or a road-side ditch
2. Short messaging service comes with statutory disclaimers. Messages, not unlike babies, are not always delivered. There can be errors. So, there- do not give us the standard sent-a-message line. Cos, really, if you sent a message , it doesn't really count, unless I received it. Communication, comprehendo? We weren't kidding when we said, sighed and sang- Talk to me.
3. Losing someone you value is a very real fear. Unless you are in the situation, you can only sympathise, you can't really empathise. No, it is not ok, because you don't know yet, if it is ok or not. So yes, it may seem like a joke that a person is hyper-ventilating, but not so much if there was a real loss.
4. Panic is a very normal reaction. Give me the events of this weekend every day of next week, and I would react exactly the same. Unabashedly.
5. The fear of losing someone is not the same as loving them. It could be selfish, it could be sheer helplessness or just the character of a person. So yeah, I probably have a Lady Macbeth in me that doesn't like blood on my hands.
6. There is still no way of finding out if a person was admitted to an emergency, unless you call each hospital in the area. Ambulance services apparently do not keep track of such information. However, traffic control rooms in Chennai and Bangalore are manned by surprisingly nice people. So, there, the next time, be nicer to the pot-bellied mama at the traffic signal- he is gonna be your friend in need.
7. And on the bright side, thank God for friends who let you lighten up (and light up!), and with whom, differences in age, marital statuses, sucking jobs, degree of badness of bosses, interests and preferences become increasingly irrelevant. Because as a unit, you still manage to stay functional and band together, in the rare times that you do.

(yeah, i don't care if it sounds like a cosmo article. Woohoo!)