I’ve always heard people complain about their strict parent stories … especially, when they were in high school. They usually complained about how much they hated their parents because their parents enforced early curfews, or they restricted them from hanging around certain people.

Whenever I heard those whimpers, I just smiled. My friends did not know strict parents until they came over to my cozy little house and met my parents. My parents were always worried about me, and they wanted to know every place I was going to.

In fact, a few years later, when I told my parents I wanted to do an internship in Washington, D.C., they almost had a heart attack. They did not know how they could let me out of their sight.

But I was stubborn, and I got my way. My parents, however, got me back with their worrisome concerns. It all started one Saturday morning.

“Hello,” I said groggily into the phone Julianna handed to me. Even though the clock read 9 a.m., my body told me it felt like 6 a.m.

“Oh my goodness it’s you,” said the voice on the other end. “You’re OK. Thank God. We had no idea what happened to you.”

As sleepy as I was, I recognized my mom’s voice as she spoke to me on the phone. Earlier that night, I had made a last minute decision to spend the night at a friend’s house. We had both been on the job covering a national 4-H event for our internship. By the time we had finished, it was midnight, and I was nervous about using the Washington, D.C. metro in the middle of the night. It was safer to trod over to my friend’s dorm at American University.

Now, if my cell phone had not run out of batteries, I would have called my worrisome parents in Columbus. But, my phone wouldn’t even turn on. Then, by the time we reached my friend’s room, it was already 1 a.m. It was too late to call anyone. I figured it would be better to call them in the morning. If I could have seen the future at that very moment, I would have never made that stupid decision.

Who knew not making one phone call would cause the D.C. police force to look for me the next morning? I’ve always known good luck never usually looks my way. Instead, bad luck was staring me down.

My mom had decided to call me early that morning to make sure I was OK. When she discovered I wasn’t there, all hell broke loose. Frightening images of me lying dead in an alley beside the White House or next to the Capital Building ran through her head like a slide show. After all, D.C. is also the murder capital of the United States.

Not to mention, it was no use for my mom to try and call my battery-dead cell phone. Instead, she called the police. Yes, that’s right, the men in blue invaded my apartment that fateful morning questioning my roommates. They wanted to know where they saw me last. But the questioning did not stop there. Soon, the officers interrogated everyone involved in the same internship program I was enrolled in.

After the 9 a.m. wake-up call from my frantic mother, I retrieved all my things and returned to my apartment with my tail in between my legs. Of course, my roommates were angry they had to be put through that entire ordeal.

The morning was probably one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I couldn’t understand why my parents wouldn’t let loose of me a bit. As the days have passed, I have come to realize my parents did what they did out of love. They may be crazy sometimes, but they do have big hearts.

R.H. Aly is a senior in journalism and international studies. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].