Bedeviled

Definition: be·dev·il

to torment or harass maliciously or diabolically, as with doubts, distractions, or worries.
to cause confusion or doubt in; muddle; confound.

Late night phone calls - they promise ill tidings and sleepless nights for those of us with kids old enough to drive or live on their own. So it was with us when our phone rang at midnight a while back. Ken picked up the call and heard our daughter rudely demand, “Mom there?” and “Get away from me!!!” as he handed me the phone. When I said hello, she started sniffling and sobbed, “Mom? I’ve got a problem.” Everything went into slow motion, just like in the movies, and my heart missed a few beats before it started pounding because I just knew she was going to tell me she had been in a hit and run car accident, or her apartment building was on fire, or her boyfriend’s plane had gone down in the mountains/ocean/middle of town, or that she had just been attacked by some thug. When I asked what the problem was, her sobs became hysterical and she moaned in a terrified voice, “The Evil One is here!” The hairs on the back of my neck went up as another maelstrom of thoughts skipped through my mind - she and some friends have been dabbling with a Quija board, or she’s had an argument with her boyfriend and now he was trying to hurt her, or some creep had broken into her apartment and she managed to lock herself in the bathroom with the phone, or her cat had developed a horrible case of cabin fever and was after her. I didn’t hear any background noises, so after some yes/no answers to my thoughts above I began to realize she was either drunk or on something. I asked how work went that day and got more yes/no answers, then her voice took on a zombie-like tone and it was I don’t know-I don’t know-I don’t know after that. Realizing the Evil One had apparently departed to go torture someone else, and getting seriously annoyed myself, I told her to go to bed and we would talk tomorrow. I hung up the phone fervently wishing she didn’t live 300+ miles away or I would have driven over to check on her. Naturally Ken and I barely slept the rest of the night, wondering what on earth was going on because she had never acted like this before. I called early the next morning, but had to leave a message. When Margaret returned my call, she said when she heard my message she thought some disaster had occurred during the night and swore on a stack of Bibles that she had spent the evening with a girlfriend playing computer games and drinking mineral water and that she had gone to bed at 12:20 a.m., about 5-10 minutes after my midnight conversation ended. Ken and I had been so flustered that we hadn’t thought to check the caller ID log. That’s when I discovered our midnight caller had been a local girl whose voice sounded exactly like Margaret’s.