Boo

I went to bed early last night and was just sliding down into delicious sleep when an unusual noise caught my attention. It sounded sort of like very heavy breathing. 6 or 7 deep breaths and then quiet for about 15 seconds and then it repeated. My husband was downstairs watching a game, so I assumed it was Jacob and began to get up. The breathing sounded really odd for a sleeping toddler, so I figured I'd better check on him.

As I walked toward the door, I noticed that the baby monitor was not even turned on. Oooookay. That heavy breathing sound is still going. One notch up on the Creepy Scale.

I opened the bedroom door and stuck my head out into the hall. No noises. I turn around and take a few steps towards our bathroom and the breathing sound is perhaps a shade louder. And it seems to be coming from the direction of my husband's closet. Oh boy. Ohhhh boy.

Now, some of you may recall that a childhood black cat, (appropriately named Lucifer, with a fondness for the taste of human leg flesh) has left me with a lifelong case of Not Liking the Dark... but only inside houses. Hey, its a sensible sort of phobia. the stupid cat never jumped out and tried to gnaw my leg off when I was outside, so why worry there? Clearly, if the ghost of Lucifer the cat was ever coming back with a nice bottle of chianti and some fava beans, it was gonna be INSIDE where I'd meet my doom.

So right about now, I'm feeling a tad nervous.

Also... if I were in a horror movie, I would be the first dumb beyotch to die because I? I am the dumbass who has to investigate the noises herself. No calling the Strapping Husband - who, I might add, took enough Wu Shu kung fu lessons over the course of his lifetime that he could probably totally kick the Suspicious Noise's ass, whereas I am more likely to have to smother it with the laundry or my freshly ironed freaking tablecloth. Better yet, maybe I could show it my cellulite and horrify it to death.

Oh no. Summong backup doesn't occur to me. I gird my loins and creep stealthily towards the closet. As I reach it, now I hear the noise coming from the window. Its outside, and as I put my ear against the heavy insulated glass window (you didn't think I was about to open it, did you??) I can faintly hear that it sounds sort of like screaming, but the glass muffles it so it sounded like heavy breathing in the room.

I do not pee myself with relief, because I reeeeeally didn't want to open the closet.

I go downstairs and turn the back yard light on. I seeeeee nuthink! So, continuing my dumbass 'please prove Darwinism's natural selection and remove me from the gene pool' tendencies, I step outside. Yep. Definitely screaming.

By this time, my husband has noticed me acting all Secret Squirrel and comes out to see what's going on. His eyes go really wide, but I am no longer worried. I've figured it out, y'see.

'What the hell is that?????' my poor city-boy husband wants to know.
'Raccoons', I reply. 'Two of them.'

If you've never heard it before, mating racoons sometimes shriek like banshees. And these two had been um... busy for a while by the sounds of it. Good lord.

I sheepishly 'fess up to my Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My routine upstairs and we share a good laugh. And then I notice that my husband was standing there in his fruit of the looms (we're so klassy!) and I smirked because I might go first, but at least I was wearing pants.