What was that?!?

When I lived in Idaho for a very brief summer, we didn’t have central air conditioner.  It’s a weird thing they do out there.  An unholy thing.  Anyway, that meant lots of nights sleeping with the windows open.  One particular night, I was lying in bed by myself.  Josh had fallen asleep in the kids’ room and since he is of the “let sleeping dogs lie” variety, I went to bed alone.  Our bedroom window faced a rather busy street and it wasn’t uncommon to hear lots of cars go by in the night. 

However, this night, it wasn’t a car I heard. It was a screaming woman.  I was immediately panic stricken.  I edged up to the window sill to look out and saw a woman running from a man.  The man was standing beside a car and the woman was screaming, “HELP!”  I called out to her, “Do you need help?”  Dumb I know, but it was what came out.  She screamed back, “YES!”  So I yelled that I was calling the police.  It didn’t dawn on me immediately that the man could not only hear me but also could see where I was.  I called 911 and watched as the woman ran out of sight and the man got in his car.  I ran to get Josh and prayed that the man wasn’t coming to my house. 

I found out some time later that the woman was being attacked by the man but that she got away safely and was never bothered by him again.  And he never darkened my door step either.  I left Idaho behind but have always remembered how scary the whole thing was. 

So the other night, I am lying in bed alone again.  Josh, bless his heart, falls asleep where ever he is, at approximately 10pm every night.  That night he was on the couch.  And as I settled in for sleep, I heard a muffled scream outside.  I sat up like I had been shot out of a cannon.  I held my breath and waited.  There it was again!  I ran to Josh and said, “I heard someone scream outside.”   He sat up and listened.  Nothing.  I said, “We need to look outside.”  So we crept to the door and opened it.  There.  Yes, there was the scream.  It was…

A rooster crowing.

In the middle of the night, a rooster nearby was crowing it’s muffled, strangled crow.  I felt like such an idiot and apologized to Josh for waking him.  My heart rate returned to normal and I peacefully went to sleep.

We had fried chicken the next night for dinner. (well not really but it would have been a fitting end to the story, don’t you think?)