There's Somethin' Strange, In Hillmombahood!

Monday night, as I was heating but not vibrating in my OPC (Old People Chair) in front of the big-screen TV in the basement...I heard noises up above. They were concentrated in the bedroom of the #1 Son. Who, as you know, is currently living in Overland Park, Kansas, working for Garmin.

I hear noises in there all the time. None lately, though. It's been a couple months, I think. I also hear noises from the dogs on the porch. And walking, in The Pony's room. This was none of them. Not walking. Not the mattress crunch of something/somebody turning over in #1's bed, not the disco dancing thumps, not the stumping of Farmer H from bedroom to kitchen, not a dog leaning against the cedar shingles and scratching an ear. If it was a dog, it would have had to be a vindictive dog, jaws clamped on a possum's ratty tail, slinging it against the side of the house. A big, fat possum.

No, this was a big thump. Several at a time. Not like something dropped, like I sometimes hear directly overhead in the boys' bathroom. This was kind of like a stomp. In clusters. No pattern.

I usually just roll with it. Oh. Noises again. When The Pony was here, laying on the couch with his laptop, watching Big Brother or Cutthroat Kitchen with me, we'd cut eyes at each other. "Did you hear that?" And the other would raise one eyebrow, "Yeeessss. We're not going to talk about it."

This time, I was a bit apprehensive. The noises started at exactly midnight. Midnight by the clock on the wall. It might in all actuality have been 11:58 in real life, but I go by the clock on the wall. I first tried to reason it away. Those stupid dogs! Always roughhousing on the porch! Copper needs to go home at night! Then I heard the dogs barking way off by the BARn. They weren't even on the porch.

At 12:10, I nearly leapt out of my OPC (Old People Chair). Footsteps! Coming across the living room! Coming down to get me!!! Oh. Wait. Just Farmer H, going to the kitchen for a drink. I don't know why he does that. I've called him out for it before. He has a glass on the master bathroom sink. Sink water is perfectly drinkable. I think he's just snooping on me. To see if I'm watching TV, or still in my dark basement lair on New Delly. Yeah. That's it. Only Farmer H.

I jiggled my feet back and forth on the recliner footrest. So he'd see that I was awake. Not snoozing. See that, and quit his snooping, and go back to bed before I decided to object to his prowling. Waited for him to leave the kitchen. Waited. For him to leave the kitchen...

He never left the kitchen. Huh. I must have missed him. I must have been all preoccupied with what I was going to say to him. How he scared me. How I'm an adult, and can stay up as long as I want. How I don't snoop to see what time HE goes to bed. Yeah. I just missed him.

The thumping continued intermittently. Huh. I'm sure Farmer H didn't go into #1's bedroom. The noises started before he went to the kitchen. Maybe he did. Maybe he heard something and went in there. Huh. No footsteps from that bedroom back to the master. The thumping went on for about an hour, off and on.

Tuesday evening, as Farmer H was feasting upon the taco salad without lettuce that I made for him, I told him that he nearly scared me to death when he went to get a drink.

"I didn't go get a drink."

"Yes you did! I heard you! At 12:10."

"Uh uh. I didn't go get a drink. I got up to go to the bathroom. But that was at 12:30. I went right there and right back to bed."

"Well...I DIDN'T hear you go back out of the kitchen after getting your drink..."

"I never went in the kitchen."

Something is afoot in the Mansion. Something with very big feet.