November 12, 2010

  • *Almost* Sleepless In Alabama


    TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

    I have never been afraid to be alone in my own house except for one time.  That was when we had a prowler and the Beast was fishing in the Bahamas, leaving me and my four kids alone.  I guess I mean *without a man around*.  You know, one you can make do the hunting while you hide in a closet with the phone.  I had called the cops earlier when I first saw that someone was sneaking around our backyard.  It wasn't fenced (no one in our neighborhood had fences because we were on a canal that didn't have cement holding walls).  It sloped down to the water and I had palms, a mango tree and bamboo growing back there.  We had a screened patio area around the pool and were located on a corner.  Luckily, one of my neighbors was both a cop and a family friend.  His kids and mine grew up together and he knew I wasn't the nervous type.

    They found some empty beer cans in one of the bushes out back but, like I told my friend, that could have been there from my kids....LOL.  He was concerned because the cans seemed to be fairly fresh.  He told me to keep my gun handy and, if someone did try breaking into the house, make sure to throw him through the window after I shot him.  He was just kind of telling me not to shoot him unless he actually tried to enter the actual house and he told me that coming onto the patio area counted. 

    Great!  My answer was to sit on the couch in the living room with the lights on everywhere but my kids rooms and the bedroom hallway.  I kept the gun on the coffee table, in easy reach, because I'll be darned if I could imagine going to sleep with someone slipping around my house.  They were back after the cops left and, trust me, I was shaking with the idea of actually shooting someone.  It was scary.

    Well, last night when I went to bed, I went around the house securing all the doors.  I don't usually worry about my doors since this area is kind of out of the way and it's not a wealthy area.  Also, except for the deck, none of my windows are easily reached.  That's because of the crawl space underneath the house.  I had heard some strange noises that almost made me think the dog was still here or the Beast was home early.  I actually put on all the outside lights and they are BRIGHT!  But, when it came time to sleep, I shut them all down.  I was exhausted because the Beast had kept waking me up with his restlessness.  I had taken two short naps before I went to Walmart then to pick up Chewlee. 

    It was while I only had one light on in the living room and the light was on here in my computer room but it's at the back of the house.  My door was partially closed so there wasn't any light showing into the rest of the house unless I opened it fully.  When the noises first started, I really tried to think what could have made that particular noise that wasn't human.  We don't have raccoon problems so that was out.  I don't have large tree branches close to my house.  Heck, we don't have any large trees on our property (only the young fruit trees) except those that line the back property lines.  When I went and turned on more lights in the house, I kept looking for things that might have fallen.  Heck, I even considered if there were field mice in the house what they might have caused to fall over or some such thing.  But, everything was where it was supposed to be so the noise had to have originated outside.  That is when I turned on the outside flood lights.  We have them front and back so I inspected the outside and found nothing.

    But, once you have a couple of rather loud noises that you can't pinpoint, you don't exactly rest easy.  This house doesn't have a big open patio door area where I could put a rifle down and scare the hell out of some possible intruder.  The windows are high, regular sized and there are only six of them in the house.  I'm not including the window on the rear door to the deck.  But, you get the idea.

    I actually went to make sure the rifle the Beast has semi-hidden in our bedroom was there and easily accessible.  I also checked to see if it was loaded (it is) and that I knew where the safety was on it.  Then, like a dummy, I laid down on my regular side of the bed.  Not close to the rifle at all.  What an idiot!

    I slept but not well.  Every strange noise woke me so you know I didn't have any really good REM sleep.  I finally gave it up around 5am and got up.  I made a fresh cup of coffee (Bless you, Bunn!  I love your 3 minute pots of coffee).  So, I tried sleeping (napping) once it got light out.  I was so bold as to open the doors like we normally do during the day and I laid down on the couch.  I slept for about an hour and a half but I woke up feeling quite a bit better.

    I'm getting some stuff done around here a little at a time.  I ran some washing machine cleaner through the washing machine because it was starting to get a bit of a smell inside it.  I really think it's some of the mildew that's on the rubber gasket but I've been leaving the door open overnight after I use it so that it can dry out.  But, the Beast bought this stuff after I mentioned the problem so I figured it wouldn't hurt.  After it was done, I threw all the scatter rugs from the kitchen and bathrooms in to wash so I can mop the floors and have nice clean rugs down.  The one we have under the dog's feeder really gets scuzzy. 

    Love you all.  Hope you are having a better day than mine started out.  I'll let you know how the rest of the day turns out in my later post.