Is That The Neighbor...Growling?!?

Last night was like any other autumn evening in fair upstate NY. We put the kids to bed and hunkered down on the couch. At 8:30pm, it was rainy and pitch black outside. What a great night to read a book…one of my favorite past-times. My husband settled in at my feet, and I lounged out reading while he channel surfed and settled on something on the Sy-Fy Channel (what is it with men & the Sy-Fy Channel???).

Again, as typical nights go, we had to get up and holler at the kids to quiet down & go to sleep about 20 times. Well, maybe not 20 times, but you know the drill. We settle back into our comfy couch. I’m feeling quite cozy, reading my book and all…when the coughing starts. After about 10 minutes, BJ looks at me and inquires as to whether or not he should give our son something for the rampant hacking that has been streaming from his room. We decide on a low-dose cough medicine. He gets up to administer it.

I’m shifting and trying to make myself comfortable on the couch now that my primary source of heat is gone. Aside from the light rustling in my son’s room, it’s very quiet…when I notice – uh…What is that? Rain, check. BJ & kid whispering, check. Is that a car revving? No… [looking over] The TV is muted. Hmmm. Seriously, WHAT IS THAT? That sounds creepy as hell! It sounds like, no. Couldn’t be. No, it does! It sounds like freaking GROWLING!

Seriously? I swear to God, something is outside. Growling. LOUDLY! I wonder what the hell our neighbors are doing now - they're a weird lot...I peer out the window from a crack in the curtain. Nothing. Pitch black, remember? The growling starts again…I can’t see anything, and it is starting to freak me out. BJ pads softly back into the room. I put my finger to my lips and whisper, “Do you hear that? Is that growling???” as if some sort of blood thirsty, rabid animal in my front yard can hear me, and might possibly at that precise moment jump through our living room window to eat my face off…

He stares at me. “Hear what?” Apparently, too many years of the Sy-Fy Channel have not only deadened his sense of impending mortal doom, but also have rendered him deaf. Great. I have a feeling I'll end up pushing his useless carcass towards the undead that invade my home in hopes of saving myself & the children.

We sit listening to the silence for a good 5 minutes. Just when he’s about to walk past me to sit down, he hears it. His eyes light up, and he looks at me, “What. The. Hell. Is. That?” “No idea.” We both peer out our front window. Good to know that it’s still raining; and oddly in the span of 15 minutes, nothing has suddenly illuminated our front yard so as to allow us to see what is going to be our eventual snarling demise…

Then it dawns on me. Growling. Our front yard. Halloween decorations. I put these freaky glowing motion-sensored eyes up in our tree. When a loud noise or sudden motion set it off - the eyes light up, it vibrates hard enough to shake our tree …and the thing growls. Way to freak the hell out of your mailman, I might add…Oh, and apparently yourself on some dark and rainy night. As a positive upside, I can now rest easily knowing it wasn’t my neighbors standing in my front yard, zombified and growling, preparing to dine on my superior brain... And to think…I’m not the one who watches the Sy-Fy Channel.