Hello? This is the U.S. Government. Your mom called

by Brandon Taylor - May 27th

I was showering when the phone rang. It had just passed 9 a.m. Since arriving in Beijing, I was asked to take my temperature before 9 and before 3 in the afternoon, followed by a call to one of the China Daily workers to report the thermometer reading. Today, I had taken my temperature but not made the call – the China Daily person was in Shanghai and told me to just keep track myself. 

Through the bathroom door I heard my roommate call my name. Dammit. I was going to get yelled at. The person on the other line was not from the China Daily. Actually, she wasn’t Chinese. 

“Hello, Brandon?” said the voice on the phone. “This is the United States Embassy. Your mom just called. She said she was worried about your situation.”

Situation? Uh oh. As I had feared, my mom had taken the email I sent home, explaining that someone on my flight had been diagnosed with the swine flu and that we were under a very loose observation, too seriously. 

“There’s no situation. Everything is fine. She worries about everything,” I said. “My mom is just being a mom. She just misunderstood what I had told her about what was going on.”

I assured the embassy worker that nothing was wrong and the conversation ended. 

But now I was worried. My mom had gone and caused a stir with the embassy. The last thing I needed was them meddling with the China Daily or Chinese government about an email taken out of context. I feared I was going to find myself on a plane home, the second time this scare had happened to me in less than a week. 

The fear turned to anger. Constantly worrying is what my mom does best. We’d had countless discussions before I left for China on safety and health issues and anything that could possibly go wrong on my trip. For most of those talks, I just nodded my head and agreed. I was a big boy and could take care of myself. 

I was typing away a nasty email, about how her actions could have jeopardized my stay in China, when I stopped. What was I doing? I was going to yell at my mom for being concerned about her son, who she was unable to call since he just happened to be on the other side of the world. I calmed down, erased the email and started from scratch. 

Logging onto AOL Instant Messenger, I had one of my friends from Brooklyn call my brother, who would relay the message to my parents that I was fine and that they should check their email ASAP. 

My parents were irate, my brother informed me through the instant messenger service. Apparently, my mom was going to “kill me,” my brother quoted, for not emailing sooner, an action that provoked her to call to the American embassy. 

I thought about it and laughed. My mom had pulled out the big guns, enlisting the U.S. government to save her son. What a great mom. 

I too often shrug off my parents’ constant badgering, relying on myself for my own well-being. I’m 22 and being completely independent of my parents could not come soon enough. But even with other Americans around me, I’m still in a foreign country that I’ve never been to before and don’t speak the language. 

So what would I do if I were seriously hurt? I’ll tell you what I’d do: I’d call the embassy to call my mom. My stupidity had come full circle. Once again, my mom was right and I was wrong. Wrong to be upset with her and wrong to not worry myself. The swine flu may not be all its made out to be (only younger children and old adults have been truly affected) but it’s still a serious matter, especially when traveling abroad. 

For this excursion in general I have been very laid back, almost uncaring if anything went wrong and not making the necessary planning, an act that has only caused my mom to worry more. Essentially, she was worrying for the both of us. 

That made me glad. Glad that I had a mom who hadn’t just shrugged off her son’s lack of enthusiasm in ensuring his own safety on a lengthy trans-ocean trip after he basically ran off to that foreign land with his head in the clouds. I was glad she hadn’t waited for me to email her back, since the situation could have been more serious and I could very much have wound up in a hospital if it had been. I was glad she had acted like a mom. 

I thought over the matter again and laughed. At least now I know if I wind up in a prison somehow, I can count on my mom.

Thanks Mom.