scaredy-cat...

Caleb has been working out of town the past few weeks.  Not a very fun time for the world's biggest scaredy-cat, but what can you do?

I'll tell you one thing you can do.  Invite friends and family over to keep you company.  Except when you do, make sure they know how to dial 911 quickly!

Caleb wasn't coming back until Friday night, so I was super excited when Rebecca called on Thursday and said she wanted to come visit.  It was soooo nice not to be sitting here alone after I'd put Jane to bed.  We were sitting at the table when suddenly we heard a loud "THUD" on the back door.  "What was that?" she asked.  Me, heart pounding, tried reassured her, "Oh, it's probably just a bird.  They fly into our windows all the time." I tried to hide the fact that I was scared with my slightly too-chipper voice.  It was true though, a bird had done just that the week before.  And, ok, fine, it didn't happen all  the time.  And never at night.  And not that loudly.

Rebecca asked me if I wanted to check it out.  I said I didn't.  I asked her if she was scared.  She said she wasn't.  We might have been able to continue our game of Bananagrams at that point and I might have forgotten about the noise, but then she had to add, "Then again, I'm not the one who has to stay here alone tonight."  That was not nice.  Now I had to know what made that loud  "THUD" or I'd never fall asleep!  I was too scared to look outside, so Rebecca decided to be the brave one.  She got up, turned on the porch light, opened the blinds on the door, then jumped back suddenly yelling, "There's someone out there!!!"  She dropped to the floor and I jumped up from the table.  I went into survival mode.  I ordered her to follow me and led her back into my bedroom, noticing that she grabbed her phone as we ran down the hall to my bedroom.  She instantly ducked beside my dresser as I shouted, "Call 911!  Call 911!"

As I was waiting for the call to go through, I heard the doorknob rattling at the back door.  This, my friends, was the absolute most terrifying moment of my life.  At that moment I realized that this time around it wasn't just my imagination, but that someone really was coming for me.  When she first said someone was out there, I guess I thought maybe it was just some neighbor kid out there looking around or goofing off.  I didn't really think that whoever it was would actually try to get in.  I realized that the doorknob had stopped rattling and instead I heard a scraping noise, as if someone were trying to get a key in the lock but couldn't.  At this moment, for some bizarre reason, I ran towards the door.  I guess I had to see what was coming for me.  I was absolutely terrified, but I couldn't just wait for it.

And there I stood, just beyond the protection of the hallway, watching the door knob turn.  Watching the door swing open.  And watching my husband stick his large grinning face in.

I could have killed him.  Literally.  And not "literally" as in the non-literal sense that some people like to use.  (You know what I mean, those people who say things such as "I could literally eat a horse."  No, you couldn't.  So stop saying literally, literally.)

I mean  LIT.  ER.  UH.  LY.

Proof?  I could have grabbed the massive walking stick that he keeps around for intruders and used it for this intruder.  Or worse--I could have grabbed the shotgun (except that I didn't know we had one, lucky for him!).  Like I said, I could have killed him.   Literally.

And at this point, you might be wondering, as was I, why my dear husband was in Mesa, instead of where he was supposed to be two and a half hours away.  And why he didn't call to tell me he was coming home that night.  And why he came in the back door.

The answer is for me almost as horrible as the experience I just described to you.  He wanted to scare me.


Can you believe it?  Knowing that I am (and again, I do mean this--)  LITERALLY the biggest scaredy-cat in the world, he planned ahead from the moment he and his dad finished work early and decided to head back that night, that he wanted to scare me.

I still can hardly believe he would do that to me.  As soon as I realized it was him, my arms and legs turned to jelly and I fell into the nearest chair.  At one point, I tried to lift my arm and realized I couldn't.  I think my body had shut down after such an intense adrenaline rush.  It took me at least 15 minutes to recover.  I have tried to instill in Caleb an understanding of how horrible that moment was for me.  Caleb still thinks it was a good idea, but I have threatened him with one full year without back scratches if he ever does anything like that again.  In this case, I think I have the upper hand.

Oh, and by the way, if you want proof that I am literally the world's biggest scaredy-cat, I'll leave you with a some true (though slightly embarrassing) moments from my past:

Exhibit A:  At the age of 19, I stepped onto my front porch while chatting on the phone with a friend.  While we talked, the sun set and dusk settled in.  When I turned around to go back in after I hung up, I noticed that there weren't any lights on in the house and no one was home.  I was so scared, I ran out to my brother's car (which was parked on the street), locked myself in, and waited for over three hours until my mom came home.

Exhibit B:  At the age of 25, I got home late from watching a scary movie.  I was living with my parents at the time, and when I pulled into the garage I was too terrified to get out of the car.  It was probably close to 1:00 am, way past my parents' bedtime, but I called my mom from my cell phone, waking her up, and begged her to come out to the garage to get me.

Exhibit C:  After my mom "saved" me from that scary garage, I slept in her room for two nights because I couldn't stand being alone after watching the scary movie.

These are only a few examples.  There are many, many more.  But now you know what a chicken I really am.  And the saddest part of all is that these experiences were after I got over the worst of my fears!!!  Do you see now why this was so horribly mean of my husband?