Grateful Blog: Day 95: Last night I woke up at 2:37AM. I was in the middle of some lovely dream and then I wasn’t. I was slowly trying to process why my wife was saying ‘Get up!, GET UP!’ And then I heard it, 3 separate times, the distinct ringing of my doorbell. Really? The doorbell at 2:30 I the morning? Who the F#%K does THAT???
So I got up, trying to vaguely process that burglars don’t ring doorbells and not remembering exactly where my 12 gauge lever action shotgun is but I know it’s here somewhere. I got downstairs, remembered to kill the alarm, and looked through the peephole first but looking through that 1948 never been cleaned ¼ inch piece of glass half asleep is basically hopeless. I opened the door with a ‘WHAT???’ but what I really meant was WTF???
A kid. Maybe 17. Skateboard in hand. He says ‘You left your window down in your car’ I did? ‘Yeah, that Camry’. Ugh…’Hey kid, I don’t own a Camry, must be the people who moved in next door—in fact they just moved in last night. You should go let them know. Seriously, they’d WANT to know.’
So I sent him next door. I guess I’m Grateful the kid was looking out for me. His lack of timing notwithstanding. It could’ve been my car, or it could’ve been much worse. He could’ve been hurt or knew someone who was. In that case I’d have wanted to be woken up. The thing is I wake in a hurry once the adrenaline starts pumping, so I was up for the next several hours, trying to get my mind and body to quiet down. I caught up on a little reading, about Santa Fe’s Super-Chief streamline train in 1937. I read 5 chapters that started in Chicago and ended in LA before my mind drifted into that 1930’s scene and my eyes got tired enough to let me sleep again.
Sometimes it’s hard to be Grateful for anything, all day long, and then some kid rings your doorbell at 2:37AM and your reminded that we don’t live in a vacuum, that somebody’s gonna wake up ticked off that their car is soaked from leaving their window open, that somebody’s 16 or 17 year old is still out at 2:30AM (and he’s not your kid) and that none of your worst fears came true tonight. It’s a false alarm. Everything is still safe and sound inside your own 4 walls; it’s just a door closing, a book opening and a warm bed waiting away. Damn I was Grateful for that…
