Mid-night's Terror

So I had a brief run in with absolute terror last night. And it went a little like this...

Once upon a time I was sleeping soundly in my bed, when all of a sudden an explosive sound jolted me awake. I was reeling... and my dog (poor Riley) was whining. Where was this horrendous sound coming from? I jerked my head around the room attempting to make my already blind eyes somehow see in the dark.

It only took a few moments to let the fog of being jarred during your deepest most wonderful REM cycle clear before I realized where exactly that awful sound was emitting from. And that's when the real terror struck.

It was coming from the bearded man beside me. (For those of you who haven't seen the husband lately, he's recently decided to grow a beard--who know's how long that'll last.)

There lay my normally peaceful husband, sound asleep (sound being the key word). Except for the fact that he was laughing. Cackling, even. I froze, watching my husband convulse with ridiculously hysterical sleep laughter.(If this story doesn't already chill you to your bones... Wrap your mind around what happened next.)

And then he spoke. Except for it wasn't really his voice. It was more of a high-pitched, Robin Williams turned Mrs. Doubtfire voice. "Well, what do you think about that? Hi-LAR-ious."

Seriously, that's what he said. Followed by several minutes more of laughter. At this point, Riley was cowering against me, as we both watched what seemed like something out of a scary movie. I seriously started to wonder if this was some sort of crazy nightmare where Jake was going to morph into Freddy Kreuger and kill me in my sleep.

Yet, finally, silence fell. And fortunately, I was so exhausted from the terror (and a collection of recent sleep-deprived nights) that I fell back asleep. But today, it still kind of haunts me.

Photo found here.