Home alone
Joel was on a rare work trip last week. That meant I was home alone for a few nights.
It was not easy.
You may have noticed: I tend more towards anxious-neurotic than sanguine. When I’m home alone, I imagine home invaders, burglars and horrors of the most rape-y kind. I jump at my own shadow, and then imagine I see other shadows and jump at those too.
It’s incredible because I lived on my own for many years in my twenties. I hitchhiked with strangers, slept on the floor of the Greyhound bus terminal in Sacramento, you name it.
Somehow, now in my late thirties, I’ve become a total wuss. I think it’s because I’ve got more to lose. I like my life now.
But I’m a big girl, surely I can handle this. It’s only three nights. We’ve got a fancy new motion-detection video doorbell thing: the house is secure.
I’ll stretch out across the bed on my own! I’ll watch Love Island, without judgment or interruption! I’ll take long baths without anyone needing to use the toilet! I will eat all the blueberries.
The rabid feminist in me too bawls: “you don’t need a man to protect you, you kick ass, you are strong and fearsome and tough as old boots” and other baseless assertions (she doesn’t know me very well).
On the first night he’s away, I turned in early, after the Love Island final (congratulations Mimii, you absolute queen).
I was awakened at 2am. This never happens.
My room was bright. The bedside lamp had turned itself on. It never does that.
I sat bolt upright, heart thudding, ears booming.
The call is coming from inside the house.
I turned off my bedside lamp. Then, realising I am now sitting in the dark waiting for the killer, I turned it back on again.
Seeking reassurance, I checked the doorbell video cam on my phone.
It said:
Motion detected three minutes ago. Doorbell not responding.
I shit my pants and called Joel. He’s in a far-away timezone in Middle America.
“Babe, the light. And the doorbell.” I babbled at him incoherently for a moment.
He listened calmly and said he would talk me through resetting the doorbell.
I went downstairs slowly, flinching in the gloom, fully expecting a machete to meet my forehead but, obviously, the house was quiet.
While I fiddled with the doorbell, I saw his pen knife on his desk. On a whim, I grabbed it and carried it back upstairs. You stay there, I said to it, tucking it under my pillow. Then, visions of it accidentally unfolding in the night and impaling me in the temple as I slept, I reconsidered and placed it within arm’s reach on the bedside table instead.
“Ok but what about the lamp? It turned itself on, babe.”
“Hmmm. Oh shit, I bet I know why. The Home controls widget is in my shortcuts… I bet I hit it by accident. I’m so sorry.”
He moved the shortcut out of thumb-swipe reach on his phone. I slept with the knife by my bed.
Cut to the following evening. 2am. Lamp turns itself on again.
I call Joel, again, pooping my pants, again.
“Ohhhhhh.” He’s having an epiphany. “I think I know what it is.”
And so we realise that the controller for my bedside lamp is the same one that Joel had previously used for our old car charger—until the day he left for his trip and offered it to me to automate my bedside lamp. A controller which he had perfectly calibrated, for optimal cheap electricity car charging, to turn itself on at 2am.
I completely unplugged the lamp from the wall socket and then, for good measure, unplugged the lamp from the controller thing. I considered removing the bulb too, just to be on the safe side, but decided that was probably unnecessary.
Then, checking my bedside knife again, I fell back into an uneasy sleep.
That might have been enough but the house had not finished toying with me. I’m not much of one for theism but, boy, does it seem there is a malevolent God who enjoys tormenting me.
The next night, lamp dismantled, I was confident of a good night’s sleep. I wanted to get ahead with some laundry so, before bed, I nipped down to swap clothes into the dryer.
At the entrance to the darkened kitchen, in the empty house, I hesitated for just a moment: should I turn on the light?
That’ll give away your position to anyone outside looking in, my fevered paranoiac brain cautioned.
No, fuck it, turn it on.
I turned the light on and screamed, throwing myself backwards, almost falling over.
My foot was millimetres above this guy:
A solid, meaty six inches long. Fangs bared, front legs arced, ready to take a chunk out of me.
Jesus, have some fucking mercy, I thought. I’m not as young as I once was. I’m not sure my heart can handle much more of this.
I nudged the spider until it ran away into some dark corner by the downstairs loo and swapped the wet clothes to the dryer. Then I went back upstairs.
Quarter to midnight: I’m tired, almost asleep, when I heard an unfamiliar beeping from downstairs. Urgent. Unceasing.
Fuck. What is that? There’s a churning sound and the eerie beeping goes on.
Descending the stairs slowly, brandishing Joel’s pen knife, I kid you not, had there been someone there, they would have got it in the eyeball.
The dryer was flashing an error message. I lowered the knife.
No idea what the error message meant. I opened the dryer door and turned it off wearily.
That’s a problem for tomorrow’s Jill.
Who am I kidding. That’s a problem for tomorrow’s Joel, when he gets back.
Jill, those with great imagination fear more because they imagine more.
I have a farm with lots of hazards. On the first aid kits I have printed, “Stay Calm The Worst That Can Happen Is A Horrible Death”
Perhaps thinking that will enhance better sleep.
As to rabid feminist, it’s like macho male, chuck it, men need women and women need men, end of story.
This is so damned good. I waS scared to death for you, and I'Ve lived alone for 22 years. I do, however, h have two dogs. That helps a lot. Great piece.