Sunday Night Crash

On Sunday night, we were awakened by a loud crash. Actually, Mike and Cleo were awakened by the crash. I woke up too, but recollect hearing nothing. Instead, my eyes flew open to see Cleo startle and jump off the bed and Mike sit up. The first thing I thought (remember, I heard no crash), was that Mike was dreaming and had spooked the cat. I couldn’t see his face. I just rubbed his back and hoped he would lie back down and go to sleep. When he continued to sit up, I thought he was awake and had seen a ghost. (I’m always looking for ghosts in the house.) I peered at the darkness at the other end of the attic bedroom, but saw nothing. Eventually, another thought occurred to me – there was a prowler in the house.

I asked Mike, in a whisper, “What’s going on?” He explained that there had been a crashing noise from downstairs. Because I normally awaken at the slightest noise, I didn’t believe him at first. I started to become convinced that he really had heard something when he quietly crept out of bed and into the closet.

I assumed Mike was looking for prowlers in the closet, and then I realized that no one could ever have snuck into our closet while we slept because even the cat makes a racket going up the stairs. I then thought that he must be getting dressed before investigating the rest of the house. He surprised me when he came out of the closet, naked, brandishing a roller shade.

I had gotten out of bed at this point. I followed Mike to the top of the stairs. I expected him to quietly tiptoe down the stairs (even though, as previously mentioned, that is impossible on our creaky stairs). Instead, he went thundering down. I remember thinking how smart he was to give the prowler some warning to run away. After all, Mike was only armed with a window treatment.

Downstairs, Cleo and I followed him as he cleared the dining room and kitchen. We looked into the living room and could see that the front door was partially open, but the security chain was engaged. The crash was evidently the sound of the door opening and then catching as it reached the length of the chain. The most sinister detail was that the front porch light was out.

As I watched Mike creep down the hall to secure the bathroom and other bedrooms, my sense of the ridiculous began to itch. Here was this naked man, wielding a roller blind, tiptoeing down the hallway. Following him was a little black cat, also in serious stalking mode. I had to bite back the giggles.

After determining that the interior was safe, we moved to examine the front door. Mike upgraded his weapon to a fireplace poker and put on some pants. There was no one outside. The front porch light had simply burned out. There was no evidence that the door was forced. It was a windy night, and we assumed that we had not fully closed, or locked, the door and it just blew open. In fact, two days later, while Mike was in the living room, it blew open again.

In the end, it was all sort of funny. I remain tickled to death by the roller shade weapon, attack cat, and naked man. We took the fireplace poker to bed with us, and, I have to say, I felt safe between my big, bad husband and little, badder cat.