There aren’t many things that can really cause my heart to skip a beat, but unfortunately the idea of someone invading my home is one of them. I’m not necessarily scared of the dark, but I am quite frightened by those who could be hiding inside of it. Today our home was invaded, and it’s presence has me frazzled even now.
Once a year Holtville holds a parade that goes down the center of town. Most of the local buisnesses build floats and participate in hopes of winning prizes and showing their creativity to the community (free publicity). Sarah’s school is putting together a float, and Sarah and I were busy working on it for most of the evening. When we got home I had to clean up a pee mess in the bathroom (our dumb dogs like to pee RIGHT when we get to the door) and then we went to go watch our episodes of Lost.
Between episodes the dogs (now in the hallway) start barking uncontrollably. About two months ago they discovered they were territorial… wow… bark city everytime a car passes the house. I tune them out frequently now, but Sarah is pretty atune to what is going on with them. They had been barking for nearly a minute and a half and Sarah got a little concerned. They normally bark at the front of the house (the big glass door), but this time they were barking near the back door (which is RIGHT outside our closed bedroom door).
Sarah turns to me and says, “They have been barking for way too long.. and RIGHT outside in the hallway.”
I, clueless as always, poke my head up and start to listen, and she was right. They were barking at something in the hallway or outside the back door. I am pretty calm, but start to get a little curious.
Sarah says, “Someone could be in the house..” She is half pulling my leg and half serious though.
I drop off the bed and get onto all fours. You see our bedroom door is on ‘crooked’ and the bottom of the door is nearly 1 1/2 inches from the floor. I put my eye to floor and peer into the hallway. My heart drops into my big toe and the blood completely drains from my face. I can clearly see my dogs barking at THIS door five feet away and a pair of shoes about 6 inches away from the door facing the dogs.
I panic for about 4 seconds. All I can think about is calling 911 and how stupid I am for not installing a privacy lock on the door to our bedroom. About a million things pass through my mind before I realize what it was that I had missed in the first seconds of looking.
I started to laugh and then told Sarah how scared I had been. I made her get on her hands and knees and look as well. She started to laugh too.
Earlier when I cleaned up the pee in the bathroom I had taken my shoes off in the hallway. The pair of shoes I was looking at, were my own. So that is the story about fear invading my home, and making my heart (and my eyes) do a double take before allowing me to move back to my daily life.
You sound almost as paranoid as me! Sometimes I will see something out of the corner of my eye, as I am turning… Normally in the bottom left or bottom right of my field of vision. I will think someone came up on me, or something, but will look and not see anything. Then the next time I turn I will see it out of the bottom corner of my eye, and look, and nothing is there. Eventually I will notice that my collar flipped up. =)
how terrifying! How long did it take for your heart to stop racing? Hopefully the real thing will never happen but now you know what type of precautions to take. Dead bolt locks, etc.