Did you hear that?!

My God, this house is scary at night.  Although I’m fairly sure that the place isn’t actually haunted, it’s nonetheless quite possible that it could just up and collapse at any given moment throughout the night, which still isn’t exactly amongst the best possible scenarios when I’m already in my pajamas…

So here I am – it’s going on two o’clock in the morning, my wife is currently out of town, and I’m freaking out here, man! I mean, seriously – all of these creaks and scratches and insidious noises from just beyond the darkness … how come I never seem to hear them during the day?! Sure, mosey through my house in the middle of the afternoon and all seems calm and blissful, but as soon as the lights go down and I try to get some sleep, the whole place just seems to come alive – literally, figuratively, and seemingly just about anything and everything else in between, too!

It starts out innocently enough – a faint scrape against the wall or perhaps an unusually large bug flying into the window, and then slowly over the minutes and hours to come, the sounds gradually get worse.  The walls creak randomly, as if to sporadically remind me that they could cave in at any time they damn well please; the ceiling hosts the occasional pitter-patter, hinting that it could be filled with any number of vicious, wild animals, all the while knowing that yours truly wouldn’t dare set foot up that ladder to investigate myself!  In the distance, the hoot of a lone owl reverberates through the night as a subtle warning of the creepy dangers that may or may not lurk about.

What the hell – do owls even live in Florida???

As I try to distract my mind from haunts and other wild beasts, I begin to wonder instead if maybe it was a robber that I’ve been hearing … a robber looking to take advantage of an overweight 20-something who’s apparently afraid of his own house!  Hearing another non-descriptive, yet nonetheless frightening sound from the living room, I somehow manage to muster up the backbone to get out of bed and, in a surprising display of courage, I dash out into the other room, shouting and turning on every conceivable light as I go in a bewildering attempt to “scare” the alleged burglar away, or at the very least give him a good chuckle that could buy me enough time to make my own valiant escape.

But of course, there is no such burglar and instead I’m met only by our tropical fish, who proceed to give me the same curious look that they give pretty much anyone or anything that wanders past their tank, day or night.  I sheepishly return back to bed after sneaking a snack from the kitchen in a desperate attempt to calm my over-exaggerating nerves … besides, who can turn down Oreos and milk at 3:37am?  I’m only human!

So I suppose if we had to pick one, the moral of today’s story is … I’m a humongous wuss, but really, we already knew that long before this suburban version of Scooby Doo ever came to pass.  I mean, I can’t watch scary movies at night, or even listen to The Monster Mash, for that matter – I don’t care how much of a graveyard smash it was … all of those ghouls and ghosts slinking around just give me the heebie-jeebies!  But mock me all you will, there’s still something creepy about this place that I just can’t quite put my finger on – go ahead and sleep a mile in my bed if you don’t believe me.  Let’s see how funny it is when you wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in a combined of fear and sweat because there may very well be a robber / giant bug / scary monster just on the other side of your bedroom door…

In the meantime, honey, please make note that before you leave again, we may need to spring for a nightlight or something.  A very big nightlight, in fact – one for each and every room, closet, hallway, darkened corner, and crawl space in this haunted mansion of a domicile we call home … either that, or maybe I’ll just get a hotel room of my own while you’re away!  Of course, at that rate I might as well just go with you…

Strange hotel rooms in new cities are never creepy, right???