Does anyone else ever get calls or text messages in the middle of the night? I am not talking about 9:00 or 10:00 PM, but those 2AM type of disturbances that wakes you from your sleep or interrupt your insomnia-driven activities.

It's the harbinger of bad news.

Most of my friends know they can't call after 9PM because I'm not allowed to use the phone past that time, and if someone did call, I got the glares of death and my folks would hover like a dark cloud until I hang up. We had that 9PM call curfew for years, I think it's still in place now, I just don't get death glares anymore. Looking back, the curfew made much sense. Nobody is going to call at such ungodly hours, and nobody with common sense (or at least good manners) would call and disturb a slumbering household ... unless of course the conversation can't wait. In which case it would be a life or death situation, but mostly death or something akin to it. So any call or message that rouses you (or in most cases, messages THAT WILL rouse you) from slumber is more likely to be bad news.

I've never actually answered such a call, and I dread having to answer one. There were 3 or 4 times in recent years when the phone rang at such hours. Lifting the phone from its cradle felt like lifting a 10 pound weight. Thankfully the calls were mistimed international calls. I remember another incident when my mobile phone rang at the same ungodly hour, I kept looking at the caller ID and couldn't muster the courage to press the green button. My mind kept repeating "I'll tell her I was asleep." A few hours later, I learned that it was a dear(est) friend calling because she snuck a pregnancy test in the wee hours of the morning and the result was positive. Under the circumstances then, it was bad news.

I started writing this post because my dad's mobile phone just beeped with a message. I'm too afraid to look at it. If it's important they'll call. *darn* I better turn the ringer off.

I repeat: midnight phone calls are the harbinger of bad news.