What Now

Steve and I had a scary night last night.

After going to bed, Steve stayed up to read a magazine while I fell asleep. I don't believe I had been asleep long when Steve shook me awake and said in a whispered voice: "There's someone in the house." Of course you know me, I was in CrazyTown, so I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but he said it again and then told me to listen. We both got very quiet, and listened to the creaks and pops of our house, which is old in that post-W.W.II way, and we have our fair share of sounds that go on all of the time. However, in all of those normal creaks, pops and groans our house produces, there was a strange sound. It was extra to the settling noises I'm used to, but it was very faint. I told him I didn't think it was anything serious, but Steve whispered that he had heard our doorknob, which we keep locked, rattle and that's why he woke me up. We lay there for some time, trying to figure out what to do. I grabbed the phone and held onto it and then Steve and I got up and changed out of our PJs and into regular clothes as quietly as possible. I'm guessing that it's easier to beat the snot out of an intruder while wearing jeans and not a pair of pajamas with the DHARMA initiative logo on them. We both looked around the room for a weapon, but we don't keep stuff like that in our bedroom. We have two rifles, but they are locked onto a rack in Steve's man room. So I grabbed the most deadly thing we had, which is a very large, very heavy glass paperweight the size of a softball. Steve asked what I was going to do with that, but I couldn't have told him. Unbidden, the vision of Janine Garaffalo from the movie "Mystery Men" popped into my head, and I could see myself trying to bowl over a thief holding one of our computers or something. Steve said he'd go first, a move I fully supported, and he flung open the door. We didn't see anyone in the hallway, so after Steve picked up an iron pipe that had been recently removed from an old bathroom fixture and was leaning against the wall in the hallway, we split up and I checked the guest room while he checked the man room. At this point, I was standing in the hall way and Steve was checking out the bathroom (behind the curtain is a perfect place for someone to hide). He came to the bathroom door and I don't know what happened to me. Call it bravery, call it stupidity, I don't know, but I snatched the pipe out of his hands and handed him the paperweight, and I walked into the kitchen with it raised like a baseball bat. I just kept thinking "This is MY house! I don't want to have to beat a man's ass, but I will do it if I have to!" So I reached over and flipped on the light, and that's when I saw him. Butler's cage was open and he walked out to see what was going on. I hate to think what I looked like to my dog, with my crazy sleep hair and wielding an iron pipe. Steve and I started laughing, and we quickly realized that there were no intruders in the house, and what happened was that Steve forgot to lock the kennel door, and Butler had probably walked down the hall and bumped the doorknob with his nose or tail when he realized he could get out. Those sounds we heard was an 80 lb. Labrador Retriever wondering through the house in the night.

Greatly relieved, we put the dog back to bed and went back to bed ourselves.

CrazyTown, Indeed.