These Are The Things That Keep Me Awake At Night

So here's my impression of me last night at 4:21am. "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. (snore, sniffle, roll over) Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

Now here's my impression of me last night at 4:22am. "Oh my god I just heard dishes clank downstairs. Oh, my god, is there somebody in my house? Oh my god, I did I forget to lock the door last night? Oh my god, why did I get a deaf dog, you stupid useless mutt WOULD YOU PLEASE WAKE UP AND GROWL IF THERE IS SOMEBODY ACTUALLY IN MY HOUSE." All of this was in my head of course, because even at 4:22am I am not stupid enough to make noise when I am awakened by the sound of a potential intruder knocking over one of my cups into the sink. I made an effort to calm myself down and evaluate the situation.

Option A: there is nobody in the house, it was just one of those gravity things that made the noise. Or maybe a mouse. I could have mice, I suppose. Yes, I'm sure it was just a mouse.

Option B: there is an intruder in the house, it is likely a strung-out crackhead, he is likely armed, will most probably rape me if he knows I'm here, after which I will be lucky if he doesn't shoot me in the face when he's done. I am upstairs, I have no clothes on, nor is there anything I can use as a weapon up here. No baseball bat, golf club. Not even a pocket knife or a flashlight. And my cell phone is downstairs, too. Great. It would be best to be silent, all things considered, and allow the junkie to steal what he wants to steal and get out.

So I laid there for a while. As I laid there I remembered the time I was camping out in Utah and had set my sleeping bag beneath a scrubby pine tree. In the middle of the night I woke up and saw coyotes in our campsite going through our food, and realized that there was some sort of large animal in the tree right above me. I laid there and debated my options for a while, then decided there was nothing I could do about it, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. The fact that I could do that amazes me when I think about it now, cause there was NO WAY I was going back to sleep last night, though the thought did cross my mind to try.

Then I heard a sound. A sound that sounded like the door opening. Or closing. I have no idea. I might even have just made it up in my head, but whatever it was, it shook me out of my frozen state. "Oh, that is just enough!" I roared in my head. "If I'm going down, I'm gonna go down fighting." I leapt out of bed and turned on the lights. I grabbed a blanket with the vague idea of throwing it over the asshole's head, and then picked up a nearby metal filing cabinet (empty) and ran down the stairs with it up over my head, ready to brain the shit out of whoever was downstairs.

Naturally, there was nobody, though checking behind the shower curtain was about the scariest thing I've ever done. Ugh. And I HAD left the door unlocked, moron that I am. Anyway, I'm going to buy some mace. And maybe a dog that isn't deaf, because little old Birdie slept through the whole thing except the part where I ran down the stairs naked, holding a filing cabinet over my head. Because of course there had to be a witness to that piece of excess idiocy.