I'm sure we've all had that one moment where we went:
"Oh. Poop. I did not think that one through."
I know I have, and I'm brave enough to tell you about it.
It's utterly hilarious, but at the same time really . . . not.
So this summer, I was working full time and working out afterwards.
That meant I essentially had 10 hour "work" days.
Needless to say, after that, I'd be tired, and rarely up for silly shenanigans, though I'm generally total game for a good shenanigan.
I was house sitting for a lady I know and watching her dog. He was a really sweet old thing, but nearly blind and almost if not totally deaf.
She had an alarm system - it didn't work on this one specific door - so she didn't use it; it's a pretty safe neighborhood.
Remember that. It's important later.
So every morning I'd let the dog out to do his business in the side yard, and every night I'd do the same thing when I came home.
Thing is, at night, this giant puppy would set off the motion-detecting light. It would turn on then off then on then off ad nauseam.
It drove me nuts.
Well, on my third or fourth night there, I let the dog out and noticed that the light didn't turn on.
Whatever.
Well, the poor baby's deaf, so I had to go outside to get him; he wouldn't be able to hear me calling for him.
I go out there, all the way out to the end of the yard, and coax him in, and that light still doesn't cut on.
I still don't really care.
As soon as we get inside, the light snaps on.
And stays on.
Yeah, NOW I care.
See,
No, not of rational things that could actually inflict bodily harm.
Of Aliens (yes, capital A), the Flood, krakens, spiders, plesiosaurs, and other such monstrous calamities.
I legitimately prayed to not be the first ten minutes of Supernatural.
Yeah, I was freaking out.
I tried a few switches and decided there was really nothing I could do about it, so I went to bed, thinking I could ignore that infernal flashing outside my windows.
Ha.
Nope.
So I get up - and by this point it's about 12:30, 1 am - and I try the switches again.
None are connected to it.
I go outside to see if there's anything I can put in front of the sensor to make it shut the heck off.
There's not.
By this point, I'm really scared that someone's figured out I was staying there alone with an old, deaf doggie and they were out in the bushes waiting for me to give up and forget to lock the door.
I called my dad - who was 2 blocks away - and start blubbering (not crying, just tired, scared blubbering) about not being able to shut the light off and hence not being able to sleep.
For having been woken up at like, 1 am, he was incredibly gracious about the whole thing.
He offered to come over and check it out, and I figured it couldn't do any harm, so asked him to yes please, please come over, thank you, Daddy.
Fifteen minutes later, he pulls in and we begin our investigation.
We tried every. Switch. In. The. House.
Downstairs and upstairs.
Nothing.
By this point, the light seemed permanently on, so I got the brilliant idea of looking at the alarm panel.
See, there's a button there that said "motion".
I figured that maybe if I cycled through it real quick it'd turn it off.
Right. . .
So, I push the button.
IT ARMS THE SYSTEM.
Yeah, so at this point, I'm feeling utterly defeated and I tell my dad he can go ahead and go home - I don't know the code because she doesn't use the system.
He says okay, goes through the living room to turn off the lights and-----
Now, I'd like to say I was cool and confident and merely went:
Um, no.
Try this on for size:
Yeah, that was the worst ten minutes of my life.
I tried calling her, texting her, punching in common pass codes.
Nothing.
Did I mention that by this point it was about 2 in the morning?
About five minutes into the alarm going off, I wondered "Where are the cops?" but either way they weren't there, so it didn't matter.
It ended up shutting off on its own, so my dad left through the door that doesn't work anyway.
About two minutes after he left, the house phone rings.
IT'S THE LADY.
I answer, and apologize profusely for waking her up so early.
She too was very gracious about the whole ordeal, but then confessed that she wasn't sure if she knew the code either.
Thankfully, she did.
She asked what had happened, and I told her.
Apparently, that light is just possessed, and there's really nothing that can be done about it.
It was about five minutes into the call that I noticed lights at the back of the house.
No sound, just lights.
And being that I was now basically alone, whomever it was could have just slept there, because as we all know:
Anyway, it turned out to be a cop.
Good thing I was still on the phone with the homeowner -- she got me out of a mountain of trouble.
I never did figure out how he was summoned, exactly.
I don't think it was dispatch.
Must've been a neighbor.
Ha, bet they loved me.
Anyway, after he left, the homeowner and I just kind of stood there in shock.
"How long ago did the alarm go off?"
". . . About 20 minutes ago. . ."
Yeah.
Needless to say, I was basically useless on 4-5 hours of not-so-awesome sleep.
And that is the story of how I awakened a neighborhood and learnt the lesson that if you don't know what it does, don't touch it.
