Thunk

The other night when Spouse-the-Returned was still Spouse-the-Gone I stayed up too late blogging and reading and twiddling my thumbs.  I never can get myself to go to bed early while he's gone.  Without him my go-to-sleep-mechanism goes completely hay-wire.

So the other night when he was gone, after checking for the fifth time that all the doors were locked, I turned out the lights and laid down in bed - which is when my imagination wakes up and gets down to some passionate phantasmagoric work.  As soon as my head hit the pillow I heard a thunk like the closing of a door or a window at the gun-holding hand of an intruder with ill intent.  He thunked two more times.  I leaped from covers to light switch and put my ear out to listen for bad guy breathing.  I couldn't hear him so I crept to the baby's room and slung open the door.  It didn't look like she'd moved since I put her down.  I was a lot more scared to open the door to the room where the other three kids sleep, but I thought I'd feel really bad if the kidnapper got away with them because I was too afraid to open the door and have that jolt of surprise at seeing his face in my house.  So I reluctantly flung their door open too and did a quick look-over to make sure he wasn't hiding in the laundry basket.  Nothing.  All the kids were limp-doll asleep.

"I hate it when Spouse-the-Tall-Intimidating-Guy is gone," I grumped in my head and went back to bed.

Two minutes into me trying to fall asleep, there it was again, a deep bump-bump.  It caused much grumbling from my inner soul.  The more nervous I am, the madder I get.  I went for the lights and checked my beat again and there was nothing but children laying in the same position I'd seen them in minutes before.

There was nothing I could do.  I turned on my bathroom light for the night, wrapped my eyes underneath my blanket and worried until sleep wrestled down my over-stimulated brain.

The next morning I woke up alive with four kids still in my house and all the precious jewels and silver in tact.  I started getting the boys all set for the day when I heard, "Thunk, thunk!"

It was that Sidekick Sister.  Her wheelchair was right next to the chest of drawers and she was opening and closing them.  But she'd played like a dead woman when I came into the room the night before.  It made her giggle.

It reminded me of a story Spouse-the-Once-Brazilian-Missionary told me about being in a crowded bus one fine day in South America.  He said he and his companion were stuffed in tight enough that your armpit wasn't your own.  As they were riding along he felt a pinch on his backside and heard some giggling.  He turned around and saw nothing but straight faces.  He turned back around and got another little pinch and some titters.  He turned around - nada.

Some folks I tell ya.  Sneaky.  So darned sneaky.