Intruder Update

Well, I have determined the source of the alarming noise.

Actually, there might be 2 sources because:

1. When we went outside the evening of the incident, we realized that one of the gutters had fallen off the house.

2. When I got into the shower later the day of the incident, I saw that 3 tiles had fallen from the shower wall into the tub.

Some might find this a relief.  I find it alarming that, in spite of shockingly loud noises mere feet from our bed, 2 dogs, 1 cat, and a husband slept through the whole thing.  Which means that, clearly, someone could come in and murder us in our beds.

Plus, let's be honest, I'm halfway convinced a ghost is responsible for both the gutter and the tile.

Wordless Wednesday

Intruder Alert

So if the whole etiquette book thing doesn't work out, I might have to write a different book called "Why Opie Is The Luckiest Man Alive."

And the first entry in that book might focus on the conversation we had this morning.

It all started when Opie asked why on earth I had woken him up at four am.

"Because I heard some crazy loud noise that woke me up and I wanted you to get up and help me investigate. But you didn't because, apparently, you don't care if we are murdered in our beds."

And then I waited for an apology.

"You didn't even wake me up until you got back in bed," he said (and he didn’t sound apologetic AT ALL). "And you said you'd already looked around and hadn't seen anything. Plus I didn't hear anything.  And I'm pretty sure you didn't hear anything unless, maybe it was the cat. But I think you were dreaming. And now I'm exhausted because I can't get back to sleep when you wake me up in the middle of the night."

And then he waited for an apology.

But I didn't apologize because:

A. I knew it hadn't been the cat because when I woke up, the cat was under the blankets, dead asleep across my ankles, completely cutting off my blood supply and thus causing me to nearly kill myself when I got out of bed and tried to hobble around on two numb feet.

B. I was secretly fine with him lying awake in an alert manner when there was any possibility of an intruder lurking around, waiting to kill us in our beds.

"Besides," he continued. "The dogs didn't even wake up. Don't you think if there had been a sound or an intruder, they would have gone crazy?"

Which just goes to show you that he doesn't watch enough crime television.

I mean, he hadn't even considered the possibility that some deranged lunatic had been watching our house for weeks, getting to know our schedule and feeding the dogs treats in the yard when our backs were turned--all in a nefarious attempt to get their trust and sneak into our house with reckless abandon.

It’s almost embarrassing how naïve he is.

But I didn’t point this out to him because I didn’t want him to feel bad. Plus I was very busy searching the house to see if I could find the source of the alarming noise during the light of day.

You know what I found?

Nothing.

A big fat nothing that could have made enough noise to wake me in the middle of the night.

At which point, it was clear that there were only 2 possible possibilities.

(It is interesting to note that Opie’s suggested possibilities were “You were dreaming” and “You’re crazy.” and he was barred from further commentary).

In any case, as I said, only 2 possible possibilities:

1. Someone snuck into the house, knocked something down, heard me get up, picked up whatever they dropped in a panic, put it back to lull us into a sense of false security, and is clearly planning to break into the house tonight.

 2. The house, as I have suspected for some time, is haunted.

So if we're still alive at this time next week we might have to call an exorcist.  And that's why Opie is clearly the luckiest man alive.  Because I am aware of any and all dangers lurking in the house and will stop at nothing to keep him safe.

It's Called MANNERS.

People always say “Kimberly, you should write a book.” And I’ve finally decided the perfect book for me to write:

An Etiquette Book.

Not one of those ridiculous etiquette books that tell you which fork to use and how to phrase the perfect thank-you note, but a useful one that tells you how to deal with real situations in the modern world.

And this might be the first chapter:

If you are boarding a plane this size (imagine an elevator with wings):

AND you’re obnoxious enough to bring a big, smelly sandwich on board with you (which, as was noted earlier, is like pulling out a sandwich while trapped on an elevator)…

AND there are 3 open seats…

AND two of those seats are single seats where you can sit and munch your smelly sandwich in solitude…

DO NOT plop your smelly sandwich-eating self down next to a woman who is so caught up in imagining the plane plummeting to earth in a fiery explosion that she shouldn’t have to also be assaulted by sandwich stench.

It is interesting to note that this will be an etiquette book not a grammar book yet I still feel compelled to point out that I deliberately did not put a comma between “smelly” and “sandwich-eating” thus indicating that smelly is modifying sandwich, not self. I am not suggesting that SHE was smelly, just her SANDWICH…but I digress…

More to the point, if for some obnoxious and deeply personal reason, you feel compelled to bring your sandwich into the airborne elevator AND sit next to an already horrified woman, please remember that it is the worst form of bad manners to, as you are gnoshing away on your sandwich, brush the crumbs off YOUR lap and ONTO the lap of the already horrified woman. Particularly if you follow this up with nothing more than an “oops.”

The problem with this is, obviously, the horrified woman will then be forced to stop praying that the plane will not plummet to earth in a fiery explosion and spend the rest of the trip imagining ways to “accidentally” trip you as you deplane.

Which, considering it’s entirely possible that the horrified woman’s prayers are the only thing keeping the plane in the air, is bad for everyone involved.

Now that I think about it, it’s kind of hard to decide if I should call this book “Modern Etiquette” or “People Who Should Be Punched In The Face.”