Every night...

Every night, without fail, I pull into my drive and think to myself, "Tonight is going to be the night. Tonight is going to be the night I walk into my house and my whole family is going to be murdered."

Lovely thought, isn't it.

I am not quite sure where it comes from but it is there.

Well, that's not entirely true. I think I have told you that Hubs isn't a door locker. He never has been and I have accepted that he never will be. This could be where the fear comes from.

But more than likely it comes from an experience I had about 5 years ago in Arizona.

As always, I worked nights at ASU interpreting, getting home about 10pm. I walked into the house one night and my husband is lying face down on the ground. No, he wasn't dead. He was sleeping...like a rock. And I really mean that. When he is out, He. Is. Out. My point? Nothing can wake him up.

But one thing did bug me. The door was open, wide open. It was a cool night, which doesn't always happen in Arizona. I figured he must have been enjoying the coolness.

I woke him and sent him off to bed while I stuck around for a little while devouring a good book. All of a sudden I hear the awful, crazy, scary noise outside. It sounded like a cat crying, loudly, over and over again. It scared me enough that I went to the door and made sure that it was locked.

Off to bed I went. But for some reason I kept getting the feeling that I needed to check my kids. So I did. I got this feeling about every half hour, all night long. It was the weirdest thing. I would wake up with the thought, "Go check your kids."  So, of course I would. Nothing seemed wrong.

Finally, about 4am I was able to sleep. Hubs woke up at about 6am to go to the gym. When I finally woke up, at about 7am, I walk into the livingroom to see my door wide open again. This is weird because the car was always parked in the garage so there would be no reason for Hubs to go out the front. Odd.

Kobe, who was 4, woke up and walked up to me and matter-of-factly said, "Mommy, there was a woman in my room last night."

What? Maybe he had dreamt it. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah. She picked me up off my bed and grabbed my arms and put me on the floor hard. Then she told me that she was going to be my new mommy now."

That was too many details, in my mind, for a child of his age to come up with. Things were getting a little weird to me. The door wide open last night, the promptings throughout the night, the door wide open again in the morning. So when Hubs got home I asked him if he had opened the front door. When he responded no, I freaked out.

Someone had to have come in our house while Hubs was sleeping, and hid somewhere. I don't know if she was trying to take Kobe and would have if I hadn't been prompted to check on him all night. She had to have left when Hubs left for the gym.

We called the police, but there wasn't much they could do. No forced entry. Hello, the door was open...beckoning  for anyone to come in. It scared me. Pretty bad.

And so, my friends, this is why, when I pull in from work, I think to myself, "Tonight is the night."

Thankfully, I am wrong.

So far....

Thanks for the prompts, Mama Kat and Jenny Matlock.