Mellow Monster Scare

This happened in the middle of the night last week and I just sort of remembered it because it was late night hazy-- but I thunk about it today so here's the story:

Last weekend, my nephews slept over here for a night. When they stay over, they sleep in my bed with Roscoe and I sleep on the couch. They like sleeping with Roscoe which is coolio (except that Roscoe sometimes has barking fits at night weirds them out. he'll hear some thing outside and go nuts.) But I tell my nephews he's like a good watchdog (even though he's probably only barking at a plastic bottle blowing down the street...)

Anyway, my older nephew is sort of a straight forward kind of kid. He says stuff how it is. He's kind of mature in that way-- even though he's only eight. There's like a mellow logic to him. Like when he explains Pokemon to me it's like he's explaining a science. It's not like Zim! Zam and then ZOWIE! Bing! Bam! Boom! It's more like, 'Ok. Here's how Pokemon works. There's Pokemon trainers and Pokemons. Pokemon will match up with and do battle with other Pokemons. Now keep in mind there's no bad Pokemons only Pokemons with different powers. They're all sort of on the same team in a way...' Blah blah whatever. I still don't get Pokemon.

Anyway again, last weekend my nephew woke me up in the middle of the night like 4AM. I'm not used to being woken up by an actual person the middle of the night-- and it sort of freaked me out. I emerged from my sleep haze and just saw a shadow of a small child standing in my living room calling my name-- and was kinda like 'Holy shit!!! Kid in here!!!' My nephew was like, 'Uncle Todd?' I was like, 'Huh!? Yeah! That's me! Hey! Yeah. What's up?' (Did Roscoe pee the bed again?)

My nephew said, 'Umm.. I'm not positive. But I think there might be something under the bed...'

My first thought is, 'Holy shit! There's something under the bed!?!! Let's get the hell out of here! Grab your stuff!!' But then the adult in me did an override and I remembered that my bed is actually flat on the floor. It's just a box spring and a mattress with no frame or whatever. So I said, 'The bed is flat on the floor. There can't be anything under the bed. There's no room.' And he said, 'Really? I don't know about that. I think you should take a look. Just to make sure...' There was no panic in his voice.

So I get up and go to my bed and pull up my bed skirt thing and look and show him how there's nothing there. How the bed is on the floor. I told him that my pipes make noise and that's probably what he heard. He nodded his head and was sort of like, 'Oh! That must have been it...' And he climbed into bed and went back to sleep. Totally accepting the no monsterness.

I headed back to the couch reminiscing in my head about my old monster days when I was a kid. When I saw sneaky shadows. Or heard whispery voices in the walls. And laughed at the sillyness of it all. How imagination can just get the best of you when you're young.

I laid back down to go to sleep again and looked into the closet where my coats hang. Something didn't look quite right. My long coat was looking suspicious-- like it was a little 'filled out' or something. Not hanging exactly flat. Maybe more like a short man might be inside it. Hiding. So I got up and patted it down cop-style to make sure we were totally in the clear...

ok bye!

tOdd