A couple of months ago – over spring break –  my daughter staggered into the living room (where I was busy ignoring her/her brother while they “played” – aka yelled at each other – in a different room) saying “I just hit my head really hard. I see stars.” Unlike every other member of my household, the girl kid is not much of a drama queen, so I took her statement seriously. She told me she felt dizzy and “weird.” I iced her head and told her to tell me if she got tired while I texted the two people in the medical field I know and questioned the hell out of Siri to find out if I should take her to the doctor. I gazed into her eyes every 7 seconds to see if her pupils were different sizes (they weren’t). I asked her how she was doing every 2-3 minutes. When she told me “I feel like falling asleep,” I got my indecisive ass into gear. The first thing I did was call my mom to see if she could come be with my other kid (she could). The second thing I did was text her music teacher, Charles, who was scheduled to come a couple of hours later for her 4 pm weekly lesson. This was our correspondence:

Me: Charles, I’m so sorry but I think (kid) has a concussion and I’m taking her to the doctor. I apologize for the last minute cancel.

Charles: What happened? So sorry!

I texted him explaining what happened and hit send. A few minutes later my phone rang. It was Charles. By this point, I was on the phone with my husband (he was third in line after all). I found it a little weird that Charles was calling as I thought we’d sort of taken care of business via text, but he is a bit of an odd bird (examples: wears a top hat everywhere. I think he thinks it’s a fedora. It’s not. Also, he calls me “mommy” and tells my 10 yo she makes “boo-boos” when she plays. He often presents us with a napkin-wrapped chocolate chip cookie, fresh out of his pants pocket, as a “gift” of sorts. That said, he’s an excellent teacher).

Anyway, I didn’t really want to talk to Charles but felt it was rude not to answer since I had texted him moments earlier. I distractedly picked up and did not use friendliest tone, thus theoretically conveying how frantic things were in my house; Charles expressed more concern; I told him that I appreciated him understanding the last minute-ness of the cancel. We hung up.

A few minutes later, another text. Charles: “I pray for her that she will be fine!”

After this 4th Charles-correspondence, I joked to my daughter that I had heard more from Charles about her injury than I’d heard from her Pa. I will say that I did find the last text a little strange/out of character because Charles is Jewish as are we when we are not being atheists, and Jews (or the Jews I know) don’t typically say things like “I’ll pray for you.” But I rolled with it. At that point I was hoping not to spend the next chunk of my life in the ER so if Charles’s prayers were going to help, so be it.

At 3:55 – five minutes before our typical lesson started –  I headed downstairs with my daughter, en route to the doctor. When the elevator opened into the lobby, I saw a top hat out of the corner of my eye. My daughter grabbed my hand and whispered, “It’s Charles.” By some stroke of luck, he was busy with his phone and did not see us.

“What the literal EFF” I whispered to my daughter who at the same time whispered “Why is he here?”  I put my finger to my lips, shook my head and SNEAKED OUT OF MY OWN BUILDING Pink Panther style, speed tip-toeing out onto the street. Kid and I burst into laughter as we found Charles’s arrival to a canceled lesson uproariously funny (and borderline psychotic).  On the upside, his shenanigans kept us entertained right up until the doctor was ready for us.

When we got home (girl was fine, incidentally), my mom said, “Charles the music teacher showed up.” At this point, I was beyond confused and at the level of feeling a tiny bit stalked.  I re-read our texts. It was clear that I had used the word “cancel.” It was clear that Charles had received the text. It was clear that Charles had called me. And then texted again. It was also clear that he did not interpret “cancel” as most English speakers would.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that my kid’s music teacher cares about her well-being, but showing up after being told not to was not “random, nasty cookie-produced-from pocket” weird, but a whole new level of crazy. I was vaguely creeped out, a little bit irritated, but mostly baffled. I told myself that he was being thoughtful and vowed to move on.

Flash forward two months (with no text communication between the two of us). Yesterday – the weekly lesson day – I was worried that girl kid and I were going to get home late.

Me: Charles, apologies, but we may be running a few minutes late. We should still be there close to 4.

Charles: I’m sorry, what is this about?

Huh??  I’ll say it. Charles can be a frustrating dude. Sometimes he seems a little lost. He wears winter-like clothes in the summer. He uses the word “boo-boo.” But like…What did he think it was about? I wrote back “(Kid’s) music lesson,” feeling proud that I managed to resist writing, “duh.”

Charles:  I think you got the wrong person.

WHAZZA. I scrolled back up to make sure that this was the same Charles with whom I’d last text-corresponded about my kid’s concussion. It was. I read those texts several times. Then everything froze. I do know one other Charles. That Charles is the florist from my 2005 wedding. That Charles told me (an unknown number I’m now guessing)  he’d pray for my kid. That Charles called me to find out more. That Charles had follow-through.

And the other Charles? The “fedora”-clad, porcelain-tchotchke- giving, music teacher Charles? Not a complete freak for showing up at my home for a normally-scheduled music lesson two months ago.