OK. Can we just talk for a minute about how I am completely O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D with these new Jimmy Dean Commercials and their crusade for teenagers to eat breakfast before school? I thought their commercials about feeding the universe so that the planets don't turn into a bunch of lazy sack of shits and ORBIT, GOD DAMNIT! was brilliant, but this.....this is by far the greatest cast of characters to ever peddle pancakes on a stick. I can't decide if I like Dimwit or Crabby best and I don't think I ever could choose. It's like trying to choose between your children. If someone forced me to choose between saving the life of Dimwit or Crabby, I would respond with a monologue from "Sophie's Choice."
But let's move on, because this is making me think of all my years spent in science classes that I couldn't understand and I swear to EFFING GOD if all it took to pass was to eat a goddamn corndog first thing in the morning, I am going to storm into a Jimmy Dean lab and start throwing beakers until someone figures out time travel.
So in case you haven't figured out by now, I watch A LOT of television. Aside from cooking shows, I am also completely obsessed with crime shows - fiction and non fiction. I should also note that I am the biggest vagina on the planet (I said "am" not "have", to be clear) and should be the last person allowed to watch anything remotely scary. Like, if I watched the Lion King right now, I would have a dream about how Scar kidnapped me from my hot dog stand and forced me to become a sex slave, all while calling me "Sssssssimbaaahhh". Issues.
You would think that I would be smart enough not to watch anything but Skittles commercials before bed time, but in 26 years, I have yet to learn my lesson. I will watch a scary ass movie (read: PG-13), true crime stories and a CSI or Criminal Minds before bed time. Like a smorgasboard of SCARY AS FUCK right before my overactive imagination gets to spend the next 8 hours in complete solitude is a brilliant idea. My brain only has two reactions when it comes to interpreting "bumps in the night": irrational fear and BITCH, RUN.
Now, thankfully, I don't live alone. My fiance and I live together in a one bedroom apartment, so the amount of time I spend seriously regretting never keeping my Tinkerbell night light is minimal. Lord knows I have never, could never, would never live by myself. I would probably spend most of my time curled up in my bathtub with foil on my head because I just watched War of the Worlds and am now convinced that Tom Cruise can read my thoughts. And you KNOW he likes tall women because he's a midget, so I'm immediately fucked because I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about how tall I am. Anyway, there are very few nights I am left alone to divulge in this insane, irrational behavoir.
But it does happen. And, lucky for you, it happened on Sunday.
Approximately 11:30pm on Sunday I was in bed, reading on my cell phone because I was trying to tire my eyes out and get 8 hours of sleep like a responsible 9 to 5er. It was really, really windy out and though very nice, our apartment building was definitely feeling the gusts. So I put down my phone and close my eyes and force myself to think nothing but happy thoughts (this is actually not an exaggeration. If I were to let my brain go wild, every dream would literally be like the random, psychotic tangents I go off on when I'm writing. See above Scar dream. No lie.).
So right as I am about to drift off, there is a very large noise in my kitchen. Something has fallen over. And I am the only one here. I can't begin to express the sheer terror that I felt in that exact moment. I was thisclose to texting my fiance that he had to come home NOW because I heard a noise. Completely rational, right? I know. I grabbed my phone and just laid there, completely still, contemplating my next move. Do I go check it out? What if it was just a mouse scavenging through our cardboard recyclables? BUT WHAT IF IT WASN'T. What if it was Tom and he had finally found me because I WAS JUST measuring myself for my wedding dress the other day and now he knows all my exact measurements and he wants to add me to his robot collection? Totally plausible.
Ultimately, I made the rational decision to stay very, very still and listen for more noise. There was no more noise, just more wind outside. I knew my fiance would be home soon enough, so I tried my hardest to go to sleep. Eventually, after more forced happy thoughts, I did fall asleep. And I survived the night. Tom didn't kidnap me (yet) and now that it was daylight, I could safely check out the cause of my distress. I walked into our kitchen and there on the middle of the floor was a giant empty jug of Arizona Sweet Tea, laying just inches from our cardboard bin.
Logic says it was either a mouse who knocked it out or it was only lightly wedged between two pizza boxes and either the strength of the wind shaking the building knocked it loose or the pizza boxes loosened their grip on the container. (Look at me saying things that make sense!)
I am 98% convinced that one of those is the correct explanation for my terror. But 2% of me thinks that if we hadn't taken the recycling out today, I would wake up to find that Jug in my bed tomorrow. Like, a pet sematary situation for plastic containers but now it's also posessed and it's pissed because I don't drink iced tea so it's exacting revenge for feeling rejected.
And now I'm not going to sleep tonight.
