I have the wierdest life.

Strange things happen to me. I'm not kidding. I'm the kinda person who in an effort to save a lost dog kidnaps some one's pet and then makes the owner feel bad for losing them. I've witnessed fish falling from the sky, no lie. My child has single-handedly caused the evacuation of a day care center. These are only the things I can remember right now.

The following story is an example of the craziness that is my daily life. You have to get to the very end for the reward and trust me, its worth the wait.

So, last Sunday night I thought I should get my exhausted butt to bed a little early to make up for several nights of no sleep and days filled with anxiety. (If anyone ever says to you- "Ya know, I think it would be fun to be an interior designer..." punch them for me, please.) So I finally made it in there about 11:00 and I was pretty proud of myself. That should have been the first indication something was going to go badly wrong.

'Round about 1:30 my dog woke me up. It doesn't take much above a whisper to wake me, just so you know. She was agitated and barking at something I couldn't hear. So I let her out and she ran around the yard barking insanely. I rounded her back up and sternly told her to get back to sleep- it is deer season, they'll be moving around a lot and I wasn't going to have her barking at them all night.

But, she didn't settle down. She stayed at the end of our bed and continued to bark at every little noise. "That's the furnace." I told her. "That's the walls creaking because the furnace turned on." "That's the floor creaking where it always creaks when the furnace turns off." "That's the wind on siding, just like every night."

Now, I should admit to you that I am petrified of the dark. I know, I'm 42 and there is a big hairy man in bed next to me but...hey, maybe there's a correlation? So it doesn't take too many nervous little barks before I'm all creeped out. But, I'm 42 years old and a mom. So like a good grown up I get up to check the house. Why didn't I wake up hairy man? Because he drives for a living and I want him rested so that I don't have to worry the whole next day about him crashing his big truck into a family of small children. Yes, I over think everything. Everything. I can come to the worlds worst cause and effect scenario in very short order.

I check the front door, the garage door and the sliding door. I turn the exterior lights on an and peer outside while maintaining a safe 6' of distance between me and the glass because I've seen way too many movies wherein the person next to the window suddenly gets sucked away into bloody nothingness by a scaly claw. I wasn't born yesterday- more like 42 years ago, that's a lot of scary- Freddie, Jason, Alien, and vampire movies.



I do this several times and lecture the dog after each time. She doesn't stop. Eventually, too tired to do the route again I pull the covers up to my chin. The dog and I lay cheek to cheek both staring with big eyes at the bedroom door waiting for the sure arrival of the axe murderer. I know by now its definitely an axe murderer she's hearing.

The axe murderer came in through the slider in the lower level and is just waiting for us to fall asleep before he comes up the stairs. I know he's coming from the lower level because I was too chicken to check down there to make doubly sure that door was locked. It wasn't that I didn't think of it. I gave the stairs a sidelong glance every time I went by them. No way I was going down there! Everybody- Everybody know this simple truth- there are monsters in the basement and vampires in the attic. So, no way, no how was I going down there at 2:00 in the morning....years of tearing up the basement stairs at my parents house had taught me that one day....one day I wouldn't be fast enough....


Its now somewhere around the 3:00 hour and my need for sleep is battling with my furiously beating heart. My adult brain is totally disgusted with my child brain. One more round I tell myself, just do it! This time I turn on the outside lights all around the house and leave them on. Damn the electric bill! Hubby is going to have a fit tomorrow but I'll make short work of him after no sleep! One more time into the children's room to check their breathing. I walk in.

I stop dead. Something has caught my eye. It can't be. I rub my eyes. Yep. Still there. Ok, I've died and just don't realize it yet. Nope, I felt for my pulse and it was there. Present also was this strange feeling of the earth moving under my feet. Now, I've been staring for several seconds. Ok, I really am seeing it- its moving. I take two steps backwards, so does the dog. I flip on their light. Yep. Still there. How can it be? I live in Michigan. Woodland wonder Michigan.

There on the floor of my children's room, lumbering across the shag was.....a hermit crab. At 3:00-ish in the friggin a.m., in the middle of Michigan was a shellfish. Not any shellfish but the one creature who borrows an abandoned shell and takes it with them wherever they go.

So I bent over my- giant in comparison- body and tapped that shellfish on top of his house. His legs immediately curled up like the busted thief that he was- he retreated into his refuge. I picked him up and held him up- eyeball to claw, I decided there was only one place for him to go.

Once I unceremoniously dropped him the fish tank I warned the fish. "Listen, you've got a roomie for the night and I'm not sure when he ate last or what he ate but if I were you I'd stay on that side of the tank."
It was at that exact moment that my dog lay down on the floor and went immediately to sleep. Somehow, my super sensitive dog could hear the tiny noises that this crab was making. She knew something in her house was not right and she was not going to rest until I made her world safe.

There in lies the story of how my work week started. Bleary eyed but with a good story to tell. OH! Where did it come from? Well if you haven't guessed, the story I was told is that it was found on the picnic table on the playground. Our new friend had been in my house all weekend but Sunday night had managed to work his way out of his plastic bag and tried to make a run for the sea.




Let me just say- its not everyday you can claim that your shag has crabs- and then giggle about it!