I Scared Myself Once. And durn, if I didn't do it, again!
What a nut, scaring myself twice.
Now, I gotta tell ya that I live alone. With hubby gone and without a pet in the house, and if I don't turn on the television, it's pretty quiet around here.
And, I gotta tell ya that I purchased a sloth, a stuffed animal, half my size, for my daughter-in-law's birthday. She collects them. She has a closet full. I mean it! And they're named after action characters. Get the irony? Sloth. Slow. Action figure. Kinetic. LOL
So, I set it in the passenger seat thinking she'll spy it, give out a squeal, and I'll gift it over to her. Well, I liked the pseudo-companionship. But I gave her her birthday present anyway. She loved it.
I missed it.
So, I bought a tan bear with red bow and red palms and soles, half my size. Cutest thing. And I parked him in the passenger seat. He's mine. Riding shotgun. Pseudo-driving companion.
It's been a week or more since I did that. Life has been busy, taking a trip with the family to the Ark Encounter for a couple days. Another day, taking a quick jaunt to a southern town to visit a cousin. Cleaning the upstairs rooms from top to bottom. Watching a new show, My Life Is Murder. And all the other incidental stuff like dishes and laundry. You get the picture. Busy.
So, today, it's early morning, a bit dusky outside, I'm walking from the living room where I've been playing the piano, through to the family room past the sliding glass doors, when in my peripheral vision through those doors and to the truck just outside the gate, I see something behind the windshield. My heart did a skip-stop on it's way down to my stomach.
What?!
Did I leave my door window down or something?
What on earth? What animal's in my truck?
I stepped back, and stepped closer to the sliding glass doors, my brain thinking "How'll I handle this? Where's my gun? Is that the cat? How'd it get in?!"
With a studied look, realization hit. It's a bear! It's that bear I bought!
Shoo-oot! I just scared the bejeebers out of myself!
The second time, was my own fault, too.
I live on a state highway, there's lots of traffic, trucks pulling empty trailers clanging by, cars with whiney tires, SUVs with growling motors, motorcycles with screaming engines, semi's or big trucks roaring by and if going south heartily using their jake brakes for the upcoming curve.
Sometimes with their car windows down you hear kids hollering. Sometimes you hear songs on their radios, or you can hear boom boxes that rock the air.
The house windows were open. Having just come out of rainy April, I was creating a cross-breeze with the open-kitchen window. I'd pulled the curtain back and anchored it with one of those weighted-centerpieces for balloons. 4 of these, 2 on each side, were sitting on the shelves to the sides of the sink, very pretty pastel colors with springy flowers on flimsy wires.
The bathroom window was open, too.
And I'd opened the sliding glass doors but pulled the screen closed.
Sure, and a sunny day it was with a goodly breeze and happy tweeting birds.
BOOM!
What the devil was that?!!!!!
And the brain scrambles. Scanning memory banks! Searching for similar sounds, and possiblities. What was that? Where'd it come from? Am I in danger? Was it a gun? Look out the window. Is someone here? Did a projectile come through? Was there a crash on the highway? Did a son come home without warning and enter through the garage? A million and a hundred thoughts and scenarios flit through the brain like cyber dots on a fast-paced radio wave!
And then, and then I see the one thing that's out of place.
It waved to me like the hello of the next door washer woman's apron.
The gusty wind had caught the kitchen window curtain and was toying with it on the outside, and that balloon weight, remember that balloon weight? It had dropped with a thud into the stainless steel kitchen sink!
Wiping brow, "Phew ... "
I did it again! I scared myself silly!
