lifetime lessons

I have been watching lifetime movies for a large part of my life. Last night, at about 2 am, this came in handy...

I am house-sitting once again for some friends of mine. They have a sweet dog named Rosey, who I put in her kennel about 10 last night. I read for a while, then went to sleep. I was in the middle of what I'm certain was a really good dream when I woke up to the sound of Rosey barking. I have actually never heard her bark before, so it took a minute to realize it was her. I tried to go back to sleep, thinking she would too, but after a few minutes she didn't. Here is where things got tricky...

I got out of bed and walked to the door, intending to go down and check on her. But then my over active hypocondriatic seen-too-many-lifetime-movies personality starting considering what might actually be going on downstairs. The two biggest possibilities were 1) she needed to go to the bathroom, and 2) someone had broken into the house and was trying to lure me downstairs so they could kill me. I, of course, decided option 2 must be the situation. At that point, I began to cry.

I decide I must find a weapon to defend myself. So I sneak over to the master bedroom, hoping there was a baseball bat or something under the bed. Finding nothing, I return to the bedroom I am sleeping in and try to formulate a plan.

I decide that if someone is in the house they would have known by now that I was upstairs, so I can either go downstairs and confront them, or wait until they come up and get me. The best option is to go downstairs. I realize I can't call the police until I really know something is going on, but I also know that by the time I am sure someone is in the house it will be too late to call. So I dial 911, but don't press send, and keep the phone in my pocket with my finger on send. On some level I knew that even if I called 911, it would take them forever to find me because it wasn't a land line, but it felt good knowing someone would know I was in danger.

At that point I begin walking down the stairs. About half way down, I start to think about how in lifetime movies the women always make stupid mistakes, like wandering out in the yard in her underwear after hearing a funny noise at 3 am. They are always asking for trouble. I realized I was making a lifetime mistake - going downstairs unprotected to see about some intruders. My next thought was to run out of the house and run to the neighbors. I chose to keep going towards the dog, even though my instincts were screaming to run.

I get to the bottom of the stairs and turn all the lights on, then slowly walk around the corner to where the kennel is. I walk through the whole house, checking every corner and finally decide no one was going to kill me. I let the dog out to go to the bathroom, then put her back in her kennel and make my way back upstairs. You would think that by this point I would have dispelled any unmeritted fears of my pending death, but as I entered my room I realized that the killer must have snuck upstairs while I was down and was waiting in the closet to kill me. It turns out he wasn't, and I crawled back to bed, falling asleep to the sound of Rosey barking and crying herself to sleep.