Animals that go bump in the night

1:00 a.m.:  I gasp, jump, and look around trying to figure out the cause of my sudden state of,  “Why the hell did I just wake up like that”?  I noticed, in my scramble, that Mike was also awake, “Sorry”, I said, assuming that I was the one who had started all of this commotion because of some unremembered dream that had startled me away from my slumber.  However, he wasn’t paying attention to me because he was scrambling for his flashlight.  It became clear that something more was going on than my overactive imagination.

In my half sleep and half panic I fumbled for my glasses, which, as usual, had somehow managed to make their way halfway across the bedroom in the two hours it had been since I took them off and laid them on top of my book three inches from my pillow.  After two attempts at putting them on upside down, one of which nearly resulted in losing an eye, things started coming into focus.  I could see that in the time it took me to figure out which side was up, Mike had not only found his glasses, but also the flashlight, and had it pointed out the window scanning the back deck.  And that, my friends, is why he is the protector.

Turns out he had been laying awake and had heard something outside.  Conveniently the head of our bed is directly under the window (“conveniently” being the nice word for the only place in our tiny bedroom that a bed will fit).  Anyway, by the time my flash light illuminated world came into focus Mike’s head was up against the window and he was scanning the back deck.

“What’s going on?”  I whispered from the safety of the blankets.  Because #1, fluffy blankets protect, and #2 whispering distractions to your protector is totally helpful.

And then it happened, Mike jumped and yelled something that I’m sure was profanity, but it was hard for me to hear clearly with  all those blankets over my head while I was scrambling to the foot of the bed.  Just to reiterate:  Fluffy blankets protect, and the ones at the foot of the bed? That’s like double, just ask any 5 year old.

At this point I figured Mike would either be going for something with more fire power, or at least joining me under my 1200 thread count, goose down, super shelter.  But he wasn’t, he was just grumbling and laying back down.  So once again I muttered the all helpful, “What was it?”.

“It was a darn cat” (“darn” may not have been the actual word he used).

So when I pictured the neighborhood cat on the deck knocking something over, seeing the shiny light from the other side of the window, and thinking that it was pretty cool that the nice human inside was going to play the flash light game with him, it seemed pretty amusing.  The poor cat probably thought it was great, until he jumped up to swat at the light, and then the human yelled which was scary, and kind of odd.  Why play if you are going to get all freaked out about it and then quit?

Well, when I pictured that, it was pretty funny, and then I decided that under the covers was also a pretty good place to be when overcome with giggles in the middle of the night.