There’s some people on the planet who shouldn’t be left alone for long periods of time.  Apparently,  I am one of them.  I went from my parents’ house to college, (and sure, one semester I technically lived alone.  But living alone in a dorm room is basically just like having your own room growing up, if you substitute “having your own room,” with, “not having to share ten square feet of space with another individual,” and add a lot of booze and bad decisions.) After college, I moved back in with the parents and then to my first apartment with Tony, and since then I have spent approximate three nights by myself.  As someone who has more than once considered peeing the bed rather than getting up to face the night monsters that haunt my apartment, this is probably a good thing.  (No.  I haven’t done it.  But I have considered it much longer than most rational people would.)

So the announcement that my husband would be sporadically working a late shift, leaving me to fend for myself IN THE DARK was not met enthusiastically.  However, he’s got a good job and it far outweighs my desperate fear of, well, everything, so I’m told, and apparently I need to put on my big girl pants and be some sort of adult that isn’t terrified of shadows.

Today I gave myself a good talking to; I was going to come home like a normal person, clean up, make dinner, and relax for a few hours before going to bed at a reasonable hour.  There is nothing to be afraid of.  I’m behind approximately four locked doors and am five flights of stairs up.  No one wants to come here.  We have to bribe friends to come here because they hate the stairs so much.  Plus – we don’t even have windows on the back porch.  If criminals are looking up to this and thinking that there’s anything of value behind the plastic covered frames, they are sadly, sadly mistaken and probably stupid enough that even I could outsmart them.

That being said – here’s how tonight went so far.

• Arrive home to completely dark apartment.  Vow to be sitting on the porch in the dark with a weapon if husband ever forgets to turn on kitchen light before he leaves again.
• Turn on every single light in apartment, including scary extra bedrooms that no one goes in as well as bathroom light.  (Scary monsters can’t sneak up on you when it’s light inside.  They’re like gremlins.)
• Turn on music with well-adjusted person’s intentions to cook dinner like a normal human.
• Begin arduous attempts at lighting stove, Laura Ingalls Wilder-style, because THAT’S WHEN THIS STOVE WAS MADE.
• Alternate between swearing at stove and surreptiously looking out the window for scary monsters that are surely levitating to the third floor for the sole purpose of terrifying me.
• Successfully get first stove ever invented started.  Begin chopping vegetables.
• Whirl around with knife every 32 seconds to surprise the murderer I know is lurking on my porch.
• Attempt to interest the cats in conversation and/or a dance party to distract me from scary monsters.
• Pout a bit when realize cats would much prefer scary monsters come get me to this ridiculous attempt at normalcy.
• Have a small heart attack after closing the door to pee and realize I now have to reopen the door with no weapon.
• Successfully exit bathroom, making myself feel better by shouting, “Ah-HAH!” whilst opening door.  (Scary monsters are also frightened by loud noises.)
• Decide to check the internets for a distraction.
• Spend approximately 15 minutes finding the least horrifying angle – must either face the back door and see intruder coming, giving me 15 extra seconds of terror before being murdered or sit with my back to it, which anyone who’s ever seen a gangster movie knows is a terrible idea.  (So I’m told.  I can’t watch them due to the nightmares.)
• Decide against calling my sister, who, upon coming home alone to a broken sliding glass door, stalked around her condo with a knife instead of keeling over dead from a heart attack.  I don’t need another “Stop being such a pansy,” lecture.  Well, I probably do, but until they start working I don’t want one.

I’ve been told I’ll get used to it.  Being that it’s 10PM and this place is brighter than the Empire State Building, in addition to the fact that the idea of turning off one of the lights fills me with dread, I’m assuming that’s not going to be anytime soon.

So.  Anyone want to come over??  I made dinner….. I’m just too afraid to go back in the kitchen to get it.

This? Is what disdain looks like.