ET, phone home.

Sis from Seattle makes it a point to call immediately whenever she and hubby arrive at whatever destination they're headed to. Calls are made to relatives they've just left behind.

I remember an instance when I visited my sister in Ohio, and when I left and reached Toronto, I immediately went to sleep, being tired from the 6 - 7 hours' long drive. Then the phone rang, and sis was both mad and worried that I didn't bother to call her to advise her that I reached home safely.

Keeping people you love in the dark as to your condition and whereabouts is the most cruel and insensitive thing to do.

Another sis told me that there was this time when her family flew to Puerto Galera, and left behind my mother at home with the maid because she'd rather watch TV than suffer from motion sickness. So my sister, her kids and hubby enjoyed their vacation and forgot or didn't bother to call home. Mother worried to death, and began calling her other children and grandchildren. My sister's excuse - the cellphones didn't have enough battery charge, so they didn't phone home, and after all they knew themselves that they were okay.

Since that time that my elder sister castigated me back in Toronto, I have made it a habit to call anytime I fly away from home or leave a sibling's house I'd just visited. It made perfect sense - this security and familial set up.

We grown ups and most especially kids today, despite the preponderance of crimes around us, sometimes forget this basic rule of sanity. That is, to phone home and let family know where we are, where we're headed to, what our condition is.

To the person being worried about, s/he may not care about phoning home, either because s/he doesn't realize the commotion s/he's caused, or s/he doesn't understand the fuss since s/he's safe where s/he is after all. S/he could even blurt out, " I don't get it."

Family members could sometimes be indifferent and uncaring without even knowing it. Or sometimes, simply acting out of passion and carelessness, without intending to cause undue stress and vexation.

ET, the well-beloved extraterrestrial phoned home when he got left by his party and co-aliens. He worried enough that his loved ones and friends were worried and looking for him.

ET acted, after all, like human. Sharing the basic human instinct of concern and love for the loved ones.

But sometimes we, real humans, dwell to much on our emotions, or forget others' emotions.

Human beings do it all the time. That's human error.

I did.