Take THAT, buddy!

Pepper spray - aftermath
Originally uploaded by vhallgrimsson

I'm home alone.

Mark, Sid, Scott & Stephanie have gone off to Utah for various nefarious purposes. I thought it would be really fun to be alone. I thought I'd eat junk, go to a couple of movies, read late into the night, and sleep in without guilt.

Instead, I'm terrified of the night. When I went to bed last night - after eating junk and reading as late as I could manage - I was too scared to turn the lights out, so I left one on in the upstairs bathroom.

I also "slept" with my cell phone, our land line handset, and pepper spray on the bed beside me. Every sound totally freaked me out, and I truly, literally, had little panic attacks every time the house settled.

So I decided to be proactive and plan what I would do if an intruder intruded. Oh, the pepper spray is a wonderful reassurance - until I think about how I'D get away with pepper spray 'smoke' floating around me. I mean, clearly, it'll knock out the bad guy. But it's not like it disperses with perfection. And I wouldn't be so tough that it wouldn't affect ME. What if it knocked me down, too? And we both recovered at the same time? Breathe, Patty, breathe.

And when you consider that you can hide while you're phoning 911, you have to remember that the phone makes a little beep every time you press a button. So here I'd be laying in the bathtub with the curtain pulled closed (nobody would look there cuz they'd be looking in the closet or under the bed) and the guy would hear 'beep beep beep' and know I'd called 911. So....where would he go??? Uh, not the closet!

I could always lock myself in Sid or Scott's bedroom, but I'd have to knock over a dresser or something and pull it over to block the door. But the bathroom opens into each of their rooms, so I'd have to block that door, too. Or block both of the kids' doors and lock myself in the bathroom. But the bathroom window is too small to get out of. Plus it's a 2 story drop. There's just no damn way to win.

This is what I go through every night - family here or not, actually.

I'm sleeping on the couch tonight. Really.

With the pepper spray, and both phones.