Every once in awhile I have a bout of insomnia. Last night was one of those times. It didn’t help that the tapping I kept hearing outside my window reminded me of those creepy urban legends (or contemporary folktales, as we called them in my BYU folklore class) my friends used to tell me. You know, like the stories where the babysitter goes outside to check on a tapping noise and never comes back and the kids hear the tapping all night but don’t go outside to check on her because they’re scared, but then in the morning they go outside and see the dead babysitter hanging from a tree, her dangling foot tapping against the window. (Yes, urban legends are best told in run-on sentences). That sort of thing.
It was probably karmic retribution for the time I traumatized my friend Alana’s son, Ryland, after he proudly introduced me to his menagerie of stuffed animals. “Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and see their eyes glowing red and saliva dripping off their teeth?” I asked him. I still don’t know why I said that. Last year the elementary school gave my mom the school records for me and my siblings, so we got to see what our teachers thought of us. The kindergarten teacher I always thought adored me wrote, “lacks impulse control.” Maybe some things don’t change. Anyway, poor little Ryland was probably about 9 or 10 at the time I planted suspicions about his stuffed animals in his mind, and he burst into tears at the thought of his friends transforming into scary monsters while he slept. He had to sleep with his parents that night. It took a lot of convincing on Alana’s part to get him to believe his pandas would just snuggle with — not devour — him.
Last week I interviewed Alana’s daughter for one of my classes, so I went to Alana’s house for the first time in a few years. Ryland didn’t recognize me at first, but after a few minutes he asked his mom, “Is Maren the one who made me cry that one time?” Alas, yes. Fortunately, Ryland hasn’t needed years of therapy to develop into a pretty well-adjusted 12-year-old and crazy good Rock Band drummer. But still, what kind of person says that kind of thing to a kid?
So, back to my night. Finally around 4 a.m. it started raining and drowned out the tapping sound outside my window, so I was able to go to sleep. And when I looked outside this morning, I saw that the rain had washed away all traces of the dead babysitter, too. I hope I fall asleep faster tonight.
Wow… scary. Good thing I didn’t hear that noise too and then decide to go in your room and ask you what you thought it was! I’d probably have been creeped out all week. LOL… Glad you finally got some sleep.