I Have Too Much Imagination

Tonight, I made rather a fool of myself.

After mama went to bed, I stayed up and read Agatha Christie and ate boiled eggs and corn on the cob and squares of dark chocolate and drank lemonade. (The last part wasn't the foolish part; I just thought that particular food combination was interesting and I wanted to share it with you.) No, the foolish part was reading Agatha Christie when I was the only one awake in the house at night. In the dark. When you can't really see what's outside, but you feel as though people are peering in on you.

Agatha Christie doesn't bother me in the daytime, or at night when I'm not the only conscious person in the house. But give me a silent house and a chilling story about old ladies who sinisterly disappear after talking about people being stashed away in chimneys, and I come a little undone.

Common sense just doesn't kick in at ten thirty on a dark night when you're sitting upstairs in the bathroom, reading, and you hear footsteps downstairs. Yes, that's right. Footsteps. Footsteps that walk around and around, (obviously looking for you,) and sound all squishysqueaky, as if the Footstepper is wearing squishysqueaky shoes.

"And it can't be mama," thought I, "because I would have heard the bed creak and grumble when she got up." Her bedroom door is right at the foot of the stairs, and I was right at the top of the stairs, and her door was open. I would have heard her. So, I got up, tiptoed to the first stair, and listened. Nothing. Of course, the Footstepper would have heard me coming and stopped. Probably the Footstepper is just waiting for me to convince myself that I was imagining and start downstairs, and then... fill in the blank.

I thought about howling for mama, but since she takes her hearing aids out at night and is pretty much of no use in the hearing department when she's asleep, I didn't figure it would do much good. Or, (and I wasn't too far gone to aknowledge this as being the more likely possibility,) I was imagining the footsteps, and then I would feel really bad for waking her up. Not to mention cowardly and totally unlike a Mature, Sensible, Senior in high school should be.

I listened some more. There seemed to be another sound coming ever so faintly ever so often... sort of a popping, thumping noise. "Get a grip, Katie," I told myself. "You're just being paranoid and silly. Just turn on the light and walk confidently down those stairs and run hop into bed and cover your head with the blanket." (Because blankets are such good protection against Footsteppers.) I took a big bite of the forgotten chocolate square in my hand, and that gave me a great boost of courage and brilliance. "What do you have a taser for, if not something like this?" I asked myself.

So, I crept into my bedroom and fished around in my purse. Then I emptied it out on the floor because I have so much stuff in there finding anything is pretty much hopeless. Especially since my taser/flashlight container feels like a lipstick tube.

Then, taser firmly in hand, I began the descent downstairs. Halfway down, I realized I didn't remember which button controls the taser and which button controls the flashlight. Not good. I didn't want to experiment, since the zzzzzzzzztttttttt might alert my Footstepper that I was stealing downstairs. Nor did I want to stick it in his ribs and push what I fondly believed to be the taser button, only to discover it was the flashlight button.

At any rate, I decided it was the top button that triggered the taser, and I leaped around the corner of the stairs to....

Nothing.

Of course. Just when I was totally psyched for anything.

But don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining. I warily chuckled at myself.

All the same, when I go around turning out the lights, I'm holding on to my taser. You just never know about Footsteppers.

Oh, and I'm not reading Agatha Christie at night, alone, again. Ever. Promise.