Midnight Terrors!

Well I did not have a chance to be overwhelmed by my wonderful animals this morning unless you count the having to let the Dogs out at 2.00am. Jinx in her normal fashion decided it was game time and could not understand my snarl at her to hurry up and stop fooling around. I am sure my neighbours enjoy hearing me call for them to come inside NOW at that time of the morning. Well it serves him right after he witnessed my jungle exploration!!!

The thing with getting up at that time of the morning, you are not totally in charge of your sense of direction, and the room is dark so you haven’t managed to find that night vision attachment which we should all have been born with. Cats are so lucky and they use this sneaky ability of theirs to pounce on unsuspecting victims! Kitty does this with such determination that I have needed a heart transplant on more than one occasion. There is no warning, no sound; you are oblivious to anything other than trying to master the art of walking and dodging the dogs. Suddenly you have this searing pain, these intense hot shooting pains in your legs, the noise and words that come out of your mouth cannot be repeated and should never be repeated! . She has decided to dive bomb you and is hanging onto your legs bat fashion!!!!! You stand there unable to move as she holds on dearly to your legs. You can’t move, you know if you move she will just dig her claws in deeper. You are paralyzed and know there is worse to come if she decides she now needs to climb up higher. You walk like a robot. Stiff legs and do this very very slowly until you are by a piece of furniture you can coax her off with in that soft gentle strained voice – you sure as hell do not want to get her excited! She lets go and then decides to rub herself lovingly against you with those adoring eyes and ahhhhh sweet look and all you want to do is find the sewing kit to stitch up the gaping holes on your legs and find out if there is a way to seek revenge without having to move!!!

So I climb out of bed, step towards the door, Jinx is very dark in colour so I am careful not to step on her, check for kitty with my defective night vision; am just about to open the door when I remember to switch the alarm off. Thank goodness. I did not do that a few weeks ago. I was alone in the house for the night. Just the animals and I.

Was woken at 12h00pm. Now I am alone and the dogs need to go outside. I have hardly gone to sleep as I do not handle the empty house thing that well. I drag my dog tired body out of bed. Stumble to the door. Open the Door walk into the passage and get the fright of my life. I jump so high in terror I can almost hang onto the light fitting from the ceiling. The alarm goes off in that piercing loud noise that is sure to burst any ones ear drums. Now I have a full bladder and Fiona has a full bladder. Well in truth I very nearly didn’t have a full bladder after the alarm went off! So there I am in the passage doing the Knapping position (Trying to keep control of the bladder); the alarm is whaling and screaming for attention. Fiona is doing the “I need to Pee dance!” I need to switch the alarm off, and I need to decide who needs the loo the most. Me or Fiona? I run, stumble back to the room to turn off the alarm. Jacque Russel is jumping up in excitement and I still have no lights on so this is a journey into abyss. Thank goodness Jinx was not a part of our family by then as I am sure the little darling would have decided its GAME TIME! Use the wall in the passage to guide me. Turn the alarm off and let the dogs out.

The security company decides to phone to find out if I am all right but I miss their call. Now I am expecting them to come to the house and I can just see their reaction and their report in the Incident Report Sheet.

“Stupid Woman found hanging from her light fitting in her passage as dogs nip at her heels. Poor woman clearly needs help and needs to get new pajamas!!! Note to Night Shift Manager: Next time the alarm goes off bring the strait jackets with.”

So with a racing heart I manage to climb back into bed after the dogs have had their run through the garden and they took their time. Maybe my blood curdling scream of fright was more than they could handle and were a little scared to come back into the room with this psycho. Tell myself over and over again to go back to sleep. Hear all this noises in the dark, imagine goblins and terrors outside. Decide to hell with it. I am not going to sleep now. Put the light on, which is what I should have done hours ago? Switch the TV on and decide it’s time to keep the dogs awake and bug them. The response was that “are you mad look” and Fi just sighed and drifted back to sleep. Jacque jumped up on the bed. Plonked himself down with such determination and slept. Kitty did not even bother to stir! So there I say all awake and nothing in TV which is not unusual at 02h00.

The next morning while driving to work I phone my partner who was away on business and tell her the story. She of course laughs at my story and we end the conversation. About ten minutes later I get a phone call from her and she is giggling. Not that this is unusual but she was laughing so much and then explained. Her evening went as follows:

Had a lovely dinner at the guest house she was staying at. Went to bed, no disturbances. Peace quiet the world was wonderful. Woke up to her alarm going off. Climbed out of bed. Went to start the shower. When she had finished showering she could not understand why everything was still so dark. This is when she decided to check the time. It was 12.20pm by then.

So she climbed back into bed, very confused and a very annoyed that she somehow set the alarm for such a ridiculous hour and went back to sleep. It was only after my phone call that she put two and two together!!! It was not her alarm that woke her. It was the security company phoning her to find out if everything was all right at home. She is the second emergency contact!!! She thought it was her alarm!!