True story

The kids were in bed, blissfully asleep. The cat was purring near my feet, Cory was already deeply asleep, and I had just drifted off. Suddenly, my peaceful night was shattered by a loud bang followed by grinding and rattling. I sat bolt upright with a scream. It came from the closet. 

"What was that?" I yelled, and Cory, who also was wide awake and scared replied, "I don't know." My heart was pounding, and I was shaking with fear, already covered in sweat. The cat had bolted out of the room as soon as it happened. Cory got out of bed (which I was too scared to do), and turned on the light. Our closet door had been slammed open, and all of our clothes were on the floor. The closet organizer that we had installed less than a year ago had collapsed. Half of the brackets were completely out of the wall, leaving holes where the drywall anchors had been. The shelves were zig-zagged in the closet, and the plastic drawers that we had on them sat precariously diagonally, resting on the piles of clothes. We were in shock. We stared at it for a minute or so, and since it was around 12:30 AM, we decided we would worry about it in the morning, and turned off the light to go back to bed.

But I couldn't sleep anymore. I'm not the most coherent person in the middle of the night, especially when awoken like that, and my thought processes were not functioning very well. I was thinking, why did it come out of the wall? Is there a sinkhole forming under our house? Maybe the whole second floor will collapse - how will we get the children out if that happens? Was it the result of far-off vibrations from an earthquake? Or perhaps a nuclear attack? Maybe the Boogeyman is REAL and was trying to get out of the closet, and had to get all of our clothes out of the way by brute force? What if it was a demon trying to get out of our closet? Or aliens? Or Ninjas?

All of these compelling thoughts were keeping me wide awake, remembering a book I had read when I was in grade school about a house built over an abandoned mine, and the ghost of the owner's daughter came to tell the family to get out just before it collapsed in a blazing inferno. Was this my clue? Maybe I was missing the still small voice of the Spirit, telling me my house was doomed and to get the kids out, and he had to resort to obvious signs like the catastrophic failure of my closet organizer. I heard a small snort from Cory, and I realized that he had fallen asleep almost immediately. That, I felt, was distinctly unfair. Didn't he realize that this was a sign of the impending doom of our home? Or maybe that our house was mad at us, because it knows we've been thinking about selling, and it wants to keep us trapped here forever?

Then there was a second crash, and I screamed again. My throat was starting to hurt from screaming. It was more than I could take, and I began sobbing a bit. Cory had to calm me down. "It sucks to be woken up like that, doesn't it?" he said in a mild voice. I believe he thought I was overreacting, which is not at all possible. We turned on the light again, and saw that the plastic drawers had fallen out. Cory saw the state I was in, and prudently took everything still managing to stay on the leaning shelves out, so that we wouldn't have to wake up in another hour to a third crash. Then he turned off the light again, and got back in bed. I really wanted to leave the light on all night, but as I was too ashamed to admit it to Cory, I asked him to hold me until I calmed down. After a minute or two, he said goodnight, rolled over, and went back to sleep (he needs a Zone of Freedom around him when he sleeps, in which no one is allowed to touch him). My stomach was in knots, however, and it was a long time until I was calm enough to sleep again. I wasn't quite as irrational, because I knew it wouldn't happen again, but I couldn't get calmed down. It finally took the return of the cat to get me back to sleep. Usually, I kick her off the bed as soon as she jumps on, but when she snuggled into my side and started purring, it actually comforted me and helped me sleep again. Mostly because I figured that she would freak out and give me good warning if furious Ninjas were about to jump out of our closet.

And the kids slept through the entire night without a peep.

Lear quote: "My butt is burning! My butt is burning!" I'm not really sure why he was running through the house screaming this.

Ella quote: "My mommy is cute!" Said during a quiet lull in church, while I was getting ready to lead the music.

Ella quote #2: Holding up her shirt and rubbing her tummy: "There's a baby in my belly!"