The Phone Call You Do Not Want to Hear from Across the Globe

Jorge is on the phone with his plans for the day and to wish us, all tucked in, a goodnight.

J: ...so then I'll probably go by the insurance office...

(From somewhere on our side of the line): BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

Me: What the f*** was that?! Hold on a minute... Holy s***! I think someone's banging on the front door...!


Now, "front door" here is a misnomer. We don't have one. Instead there are two sets of sliding glass doors that pass for a main entrance, added when the original porch was enclosed. This means that anyone coming up to the house can see pretty much everything, including the pajama-clad, unarmed (except for her telephone) woman, coming to investigate. A long silence ensues as I remember that I did not close the front gate, realize I did not leave the porch light on, and never forget for one second that neither set of sliders lock. I have to walk right up to the slider to reach the outside light switch.

Click

Nothing. No one on the porch. A few more exterior lights click on to cover the vast expanse of yard and...

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

Me (into the phone): Oh my God! It's doing it again! What the f*** is it?!

More silence as I stand frozen to the spot wondering if someone is banging on the children's window. I step into the hall when it occurs to me that I have not turned on the hall light for soft illumination as intended, but in haste flipped the switch to their bedroom instead. The girls are brightly on display in front of the pitch black windows.

Sarabelle is rolled under her cot wrapped in her green blanket, looking like a giant caterpillar and Grice is immobile with the blankets over her head, doing a pretty good imitation of an empty bed.

S (weakly): Mom...?!

Me: Shhh.

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

Me: (into the phone while the kids shriek in the background): It's inside the house.

Long pause while I muster the courage to check the back door.

Me: It's...it's... Oh, it's the washing machine. The load is unbalanced.

Loads of nervous giggles follow as we assure J we're okay.

J: Jeez, hon, you scared me! It sounded like the end of The Blair Witch Project!


Yes, we recently watched that movie again with Sarabelle and Grice, to demonstrate the simplicity and creativity of the low-budget horror blockbuster. My extended silences, panicky narration, and frequent use of expletives obviously brought that to Jorge's mind.

I went in to settle the girls back down, which took awhile with all that adrenaline pumping, as they relayed their earlier terrified conversation to me.

S: What if it's a murderer?!

G: What if it's someone trying to escape from a murderer?!

S: And they're all bloody! And the murderer is right behind them!

G: Or it's the murderer in disguise pretending to be hurt so we let him in...!

---

Things to Do

-- Get dowels cut to jam sliders shut
-- Leave porch light on day and night
-- Secure gate every evening
-- Remember sound washing machine makes
-- Never watch scary movies before J leaves on a trip


The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman; the lover, all is frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The form of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear!

-- William Shakespeare (A Midsummer-Night's Dream)