Things That Go Bump in the Night

Last week, I house-sitted for my aunt and uncle who live a great house in Plano. They have a huge comfy couch that's perfect for TV watching and a great big kitchen that they stocked with food just for me. All I had to do was let their cat Red in and out whenever he wanted and make sure his food bowl was never empty. For seven days, I was living the high life.

Tuesday night was my last night in the Plano house and I had everything packed up so that I could just leave for work in the morning and then head back home to my apartment that afternoon. I went to sleep at about 9:30 and was out cold in no time. Just before midnight, my cell phone rang and in my state of complete sleep, I thought it was my alarm going off and quickly silenced it. Not even two minutes later, it rang again and this time I was awake enough to realize that was my ring tone, not the alarm, and checked to see who was calling. It was a Dallas number I didn't recognize, so I didn't answer. A few moments later I got the voicemail ding, so I checked the message. It was about 10 seconds of silence. Not like someone called the wrong number and hung up when they heard my voice or even a few seconds after the beep, they sat there and breathed into the phone for a. really. long. time. So I start to FREAK OUT. Someone out there is calling me, trying to get me through the cell phone. I check my call log and the call that came in a mere minute and a half before this one was from a completely different number. So I received two unknown calls, in the middle of the night, within ninety seconds of each other, from two complete strangers.

I sat up in bed, my heart racing, trying to determine what to do. There was no way I was going to walk downstairs and wander through this HUGE house tyring to find the would be attacker. I debated calling Mark, but didn't want to wake him up. Then I realized that the whole point of having a boyfriend is so you can call them when you are terrified, right? So I called him and told him my situation. He assured me they were wrong numbers, but I just didn't buy it. Two totally different wrong numbers calling me so close together? I hung up with him when he was no help in calming my fears and sat in the bed, dead silent and not moving a muscle. Now of course, the house starts making all kinds of scary house noises. Creaks and snaps and dings and all kinds of scary stuff. So I call my Dad. I know he lives no where near me and can do nothing for me, but I just need his assurance that I am not going to die in this bed on this night. My mom answer the phone and immediately goes into panic mode. Why am I calling so late? What is wrong? Where am I? What time is it?? She is no help. Then, just as I am explaining the voicemail of breathing, my phone goes dead. I check and I have lost all my service bars. Someone has messed with my phone! Some cell phone lines somewhere have been cut! I can't even call the police now! I panic even more and call Mark back two more times before my phone finally puts me though.

I am near tears now, even though Mark swears no one can interfere with cellular signals. There are no lines to cut with wireless phones. I'm not buying it though. My Dad beeps in and I click over. He says he will call the two numbers, pretend that he got the missed calls from them and then find out who these mystery stalkers really are. So I hang up and wait. I can't stand the waiting, so I call Mark back again. Take note that every time I call him, I am completely waking him up again. He is not up losing sleep over my sheer terror. Every time I call, he answers in that voice that so obviously is trying to tear itself away from sleeping. I tell him he has to talk to me until my Dad calls back, has to distract me while I wait. So we chit chat. He mostly sleeps on the other line while I blurt out "say something!" Finally, Dad beeps in. I click over.

My Dad has called both numbers and the first one is a lady who says her kids were using her phone but "they are gone now." The second one goes to a voicemail. This does not assure me. I have now convinced myself that these "kids" that were using the phone are really hoodlum gang members out on a killing spree. They are after me. My Dad swears that no one even knows where I am, since I'm not even at my apartment. I tell him fine, I will survive and he tells me I can always just call 911. We hang up. I sit in bed for a few more minutes, listening to the house make all its freaky sounds. It doesn't take long before I call Mark back. He answers and immediately says he is coming over. Yes it is 1:00 AM and yes he is a good 25 minutes away, but he will come over so that we can both get some sleep. I fell bad, but readily agree.

As he drives to Plano, I make him stay on the phone with me. During this time, my entire right leg falls asleep but I am too scared to even shift positions, in case it alerts someone as to my whereabouts. Finally, Mark arrives. I run downstairs to let him in and don't see any predators in the living room. At 1:30 we get in bed and he is asleep and snoring in about seven seconds. Three hours later his alarm goes off and he gets up to head back home to get ready for work. Needless to say, we were both pretty tired the next day and I felt pretty silly at the whole ordeal. But really, you would have done the same thing, right?