BoomerGirl Diary

The other night I woke up at exactly 1:25 a.m. It was very strange. I woke up from a deep sleep with the thought, “It’s absolutely too, too quiet.” I sat up and then decided to go downstairs. The electricity had gone off.

I didn’t realize that the furnace, the clocks, the icemaker, the freezers, the refrigerators, and every other electrical device makes a certain amount of noise. When it all comes crashing to a halt, the house is extraordinarily quiet. Quiet enough to wake a person up. The calm was short. The phone started ringing.

Now, when the phone rings in our house it makes a lot of noise. There are four phones on the second floor, two on the first, one in the basement and one on the third floor. They were all ringing and ringing.

I immediately decided that someone was in the basement, had already turned off the electricity and now was calling me up for some reason. I have to admit that I am an avid mystery reader who enjoys a long read right before I go to sleep. I dream of Dexter going after somebody or Chee doing a cleansing ceremony or worse. I usually dream about chases in Cincinnati, where I grew up, or New Orleans, where I’ve walked and been lost a lot. When I wake up in the middle of the night, my mind is on the mean streets and home invasion. It rarely dawns on me that in Lawrence, Kan., most criminals will skip a big house on campus. Instead, I wake up on high alert, suspicious and ready for action. I’m suddenly a strong, fit female detective. Obviously, reality and logic may not be my forte. It doesn’t help that my husband Bob mostly sleeps through the drama.

“The electricity is off and somebody is calling us from the basement. I locked the upstairs, connecting door.” I shake my husband.

“What? Answer the phone.” He grumbled and turned over.

“I did. The person hung up and keeps calling us.”

The phone kept ringing and ringing. “Answer it again.”

By this time my husband was up and put his glasses on.

“I need to find a baseball bat.” As reality seemed to creep in, I realized that I couldn’t take on the intruder. “I could go back downstairs.”

My husband picked up the phone and then put it down. Nobody answered.

Then it started ringing again. You could say it was “ringing off the hook”.

Then the rest of the electricity kicked back on. So now we could turn on some lights. I kept wondering why our dog Cassie wasn’t barking her head off.

“I have decided that nobody is down in the basement. I think Cassie would bark. Even if the person gave her a bone or some meat, she would have finished by now. She’d be barking for more at the very least … Do you know where a baseball bat is?”

My husband suddenly sits up, “Why do you want a baseball bat?”

“For protection. In case.” I know that I’d find a trusty bat right under Arna’s bed in the basement.

“What should we do about the phones?” They were still ringing.

“Go and unplug them all.” So I unplugged the phones on the second floor.

“I’m too tired to get the other ones. I’m shutting the door to our room.”

It had sunk in that assuming someone was in the basement was maybe from the book I was reading before I fell asleep. I had a headache from the ringing phones. I took two aspirin and fell back asleep. My husband was long asleep. I didn’t think he’d even remember it in the morning.

In the morning I plugged in the phones and they began ringing again. I went down in the basement and found the bat under Arna’s bed. I also found the dog, sleeping away while the phone continued to ring.

I thought about it all later. How did the quiet wake me up? Sometimes I can’t get to sleep because it’s too quiet. I listen for radios, drum sets, midnight showers, car doors slamming, random laughter, slamming game controllers, clicking of the computer, and all the various noises from our kids growing up. I can almost hear the creaking of the refrigerator, the car keys hitting the kitchen counter, the cabinets opening and shutting for food searches. I can even hear the 2 am basketball games, the ball bouncing right outside our bedroom window. This did wake my husband, “Why are they out there in the middle of the night?”

Then we’d both turn over. “At least they’re home,” I’d always say and fall immediately back to sleep.

“Why was the phone ringing?” my husband asked that evening.

“I don’t know. Some kind of wires crossed … maybe nothing to do with the electricity going out. Some of the phones are 50 years old. That might be part of the problem. They recommend new phones.”

“Where was Cassie?”

“Asleep, on the couch.”

“That dog is worthless. Not a watchdog at all.”

“Too many teenagers in and out … not worth her while to worry.”

“You think she’d bark at the phone.”

“I found the baseball bat.”

“Why were you looking for that?”

“I don’t know, just in case.”

Why would the quiet wake me up? I must hear the hum of electrical devices, even in my sleep.. So when they are all shut down, it’s kind of scary. Whenever the phone rings during the night I jump up and review where our kids might be at this particular hour.

Now I automatically think, “All grown up and Arna safe at school.”

I figure I’m still listening for the noises and ready to go into action. Cassie obviously needs some training. Teenagers are gone. The phones ring or the electricity goes off, she ought to be barking. Maybe it’s a lost cause. I gently push the bat under my bed.