Which reminds me...

My blog post yesterday about our middle of the night scare, reminded me of another middle of the night scare we had long, long ago.

It happened so long ago, when times were very different. During a very brief, but very fond time of our lives that my husband and I shared as a newlywed couple, sans children. A family of two.

It was a simpler time. A time when our home was always clean and quiet. A time when we came and went as we pleased. We had money in our pockets and food in our cupboards. We had time, and space, and peace...it was a beautiful time.

All that shit is gone now. ALL OF IT!! The food, the money, the clean and quiet house, time is fleeting, space is confined, and if I ever find peace again, by god, I will...I will. I don't know what I'll do because I have resigned to the fact that peace is something to wish for in The Middle East. It's not something I'll ever find with three children in the house!! Save for bedtime, of course.

What a digression...

It was about ten years ago and I was pregnant with Avery.

We were in bed and I set the alarm as I did every night. We had a keypad in our room, because I was a little paranoid and freaky back then. After losing Joey, for a while I had an irrational fear of death. I felt that if shit happened to me once, then it could happen to me again.

We had sensors on every door and window in the house and a motion detector. Our house was all of 1100 square feet. I think one sensor would've likely been sufficient for the whole house!! A little obsessive!! Each night I would activate all sensors and shut our bedroom door. It was the only way I could sleep.

Sometime in the middle of the night, the alarm goes off.

DEAR JESUS!! The only thing worse than being startled as I was the other night, is being startled out of a dead sleep!! The alarm is deafening and as we go to shut it off, we notice that it's the motion sensor that has been triggered.

HOLY HELL...something was moving in the house!!

The only thing scarier than hoodlums, murderers, and thieves, and/or psycho, bag-headed killers on the outside of the house, is them being on the INSIDE of your house!!

I probably peed a little at this point, what with the fear, and baby sitting on my bladder.

Me: "Baby, there's someone in the house...you have to go out there."

Him: "Uh-Uh."

Me: "What do you mean, 'Uh-Uh'!"

Him: "You go."

Me: "FUCK YOU...I'm not going. I'm scared. I'm a girl. Plus, I'm busy gestating your seed...YOU FUCKING GO!!!"

Him: "ALRIGHT!"

Jake starts looking around our bedroom. He's opening drawers, scouring countertops. Then he stops and moves towards the door.

Me: "What were you looking for?"

Him: "A weapon."

Me: "I don't see anything, what do you have?"

Him: "A pen."

Me: "A pin...like a PEE-EYE-INN?"

Him: "No, like a Bic. A pen."

Me: "You look for a weapon to protect your wife and your legacy...and you come up with a FUCKING PEN!!! What are you gonna do...DOODLE HIM A CARICATURE??!!"

Him: "It's all I got...SHHHHHHHHHH!"

Jake tip-toes out the door, pen in hand, ready for...something, I guess. He walks all of the five steps, past the other two bedrooms, the bathroom, the kitchen and the garage...tiny house...and finds himself in the living room. Nothing. No hoodlums, murderers, thieves, or bag-headed killers to be found.

He does find a large, empty Target sack on the couch and the ceiling fan on high. We conclude that the fan blew the sack, and triggered the alarm.

Jake didn't have to use his weapon, after all.

He's still my hero, because I know that if someone had been in the house...he'd have doodled the SHIT outta them!!