i am not a wuss.

This really is so not blog worthy and I may regret every word of this. Yet, I have found in the past that sometimes it is best to just come here to say what I need to say and I find it to be my therapy in a way. I get it out. I say it and then it is said and I can leave it here to linger and no longer sit in my mind, bothering me, and waking me up. 

So here it goes. 

I am 35. Single. For most of my adult life I have lived alone. Maybe it is because I grew up in a quintessential, small Southern town, or maybe I am just naive, but I have never been afraid. Staying here now I have often left the key in the front door. I don't lock my car. I am not paranoid. However, I have never had the ever-living daylights scared out of me. I do know living in Africa has made me more jittery and I always assume every flutter, shadow or quick movement in the room are lizards or rats. But I am not a wuss.

Yet, the other night I woke up from a deep sleep to the distinct noise of furniture moving downstairs. I bolt upright. My heart starts pounding in my ears. My mouth goes dry. It sounds like a chair moving across the hardwood floors. Then I hear the teacups. The pretty white ones on the shelf. They rattle. It's raining outside. I think that perhaps it is a bird but there is no fluttering and these are loud thuds, furniture moving across the floor and dishes being used...or taken? I know that I have to dial 911 but I can't help but think, "This is going to be in the Police Report", the awful, comical, embarrassing Hartwell Sun Police Report. I adore The Hartwell Sun. They are champions. But I cannot be in the Police Report. It's such a joke. But, if you've read it then you would know, you can't make this stuff up. 

Then a hear the "beep" of the microwave. I completely, totally, utterly freak out. I grab the phone and dial 911. I whisper the words, "I think someone is in my house" with horrific fear and trembling. I try to rationalize who in the world would rob a house with not much in it really, the TV is circa 1995, and do it in the rain? Did they want things or did they want me? I am not a wuss. But there is someone or some thing downstairs. I hide behind a chair in my room out of absolute terror someone stranger is about to walk into my room any second. I put on a Patagonia fleece, my solution to not having to put on a bra, and fly down the stairs when the policeman arrives at the door. I expect to find it open, ajar, but it is locked and the key is not in the door this time, but safely inside. The brave policeman comes inside and walks over most of the house. Nothing. A teacup holding chocolates is overturned on the shelf. His phone rings, his ringtone, the Andy Griffith Show theme song. I am still too terrified to even laugh at that. He tells the guy on the other end that the house is clear and there is no need to send out the troops. (My words, not his). He tells me it must have been a mouse, but I want to say 1. This house does not have mice and 2. Mice don't drink tea and use the microwave oven or move chairs. I am still pretty much a big mess. I glance at myself in the mirror. I look awful. Sometimes eye makeup removal is just too big a task for me at night and I will forgo it until the morning. A joy of being single. I need not do this. A mouse? No way. It couldn't be. As he walks out the door I yell behind him, "Please don't put this in the Police Report". I don't think he knew what I meant. 

Before he could drive off, I hear noises again. This time they are coming from upstairs. It sounds like slow, steady, footsteps. At this point I am wide awake and all the lights are on and I am now almost certain it is not a person but my heart won't slow down enough so that my brain can even think. I sit on the sofa. I wipe mascara from my forehead. I listen. I swallow. I breath in and out. The noise gets louder and louder. Out of the corner of my now trained eye I see it. A flying squirrel, bouncing down the wooden staircase, each hollow step echoing throughout the cabin. My heart moves from my throat back into my fleece.

I try to go back upstairs and sleep. I know there is simply no way I can catch a flying rodent barehanded. I crawl in bed only to hear him coming back up the steps. Thump. Thump. Across the sea grass flooring. He then flattens himself and comes right under the door. Now we are in an enclosed space. Alone. Together. The intruder and I. The reason Jan. 17 A woman on Shae Drive reported a flying squirrel with Lindt chocolate on his chin had her trapped in her bedroom.