Is this an Emergency?

The boys frequently accompanied me to the library when I was working on my dissertation. I would walk through the stacks of books in the research library, find the books and journals that I needed, hand them to the boys, and they would pile the books onto my cart and help me transport them. They became familiar enough with the library that I could send them into the stacks to retrieve a volume. Evan was even able to go the computer and find out if the library had volumes that I had found referenced in other books and articles. I felt pretty proud that my boys, at the tender ages of 11 and 13, could successfully navigate a research library.

One day, we parked in the university parking garage, and the three of us spent several hours in the library. As per our tradition, I stood at the copy machine making copies of articles. From there I could watch Quinlan take the books over to the circulation desk to check them out. And Evan returned journal volumes to the shelf for reshelving and helped Quinlan pack the books into the cart for our return to the car.

On our way back to the car I realized that I had left my copy card in the copy machine. Not wanting to simply lose copy money, I sent Evan back to the library to retrieve my card. Quinlan and I continued on to the garage and I told Evan to meet us at the car. I figured that if Evan hurried (which he never has, so I am not sure why that factored into my logic at all) that he would catch up to us before we even got to the car.

However, Quinlan and I made it to the car and Evan still hadn't returned. We loaded the books into the car and sat there and waited for him. Still no Evan. Finally, we got out of the car and returned to the library, expecting to find Evan along our route. We made it all the way back to the library and never found Evan.

Naturally, the library didn't have a PA system (something about not wanting to disturb patrons). I called my campus office to see if anyone had seen Evan; they hadn't. Trying not to panic, I called campus police and gave them a description of Evan.

In less than 15 minutes, the campus police called. They had found Evan and picked him up. It turns out that when Evan had returned to the parking garage, he went to the wrong floor to look for the car. When he couldn't find the car he waited at the entrance/exit of the garage. He figured that when we drove out we would see him. Like we were going to drive out without him.

The thing is that there were emergency telephones in the parking garage--at least four on every floor. Evan had seen the emergency phones. I asked him why he didn't pick one up and call.

"I didn't know if I was in an emergency" was his reply.