I like to wake up to a sunny room. It makes it easier to get out of bed when you know the day has already begun. This is most likely an adverse reaction to having spent all the mornings of my childhood and teenage years waiting for the 5 a.m. van to take me to swim practice. Or, in college, crew practice. Also, to those ass-o’clock a.m. approaches for north face climbs that I know will warm up (somewhat) eventually, but where I also know I will spend the first three pitches wishing I had chosen a sport that did not involve punctuating periods of intense sweating and fear with periods of sitting in an uncomfortable harness in the freezing darkness, two hundred feet above the ground, untangling great masses of knots and swearing back and forth thirty meters with my husband in the dark. If I’m not going to exert myself before dawn, I’d rather sleep until noon. Or at least until I feel the sun on my skin.
Which is why I have spent the last two months trying to convince Pnut that we should open the curtains when we go to sleep. But this is not possible. No, no. Not even an option. And it’s not that somebody might see our naked butts. Not that a serial killer might be crouched in the bushes, binoculars in hand. Not that sunshine in the mornings is offensive in any way. None of these reasons comes remotely close to why our curtains must remain drawn after dusk.
No, the reason that we cannot open the curtains at night is because the deer might watch us sleep.
That’s right. Go back and read it again.
On second thought, I need to write it again.
WE CANNOT OPEN THE CURTAINS AT NIGHT BECAUSE THE DEER MIGHT WATCH US SLEEP.
And not only might these herds of subversively voyeuristic deer be peering into our windows at night, but they might be psychotic as well. Angry and ferocious. With sharp incisors ready to smash through our windows. It’s even possible they’ve coerced bears to act as their vengeful henchmen, joining the quest to terrify us out of our wits should the bedroom curtains be deigned to part even a quarter of an inch.
I’ve been known to have, at best, a casual relationship with reality. But this? This should mean more respect for my issues with the darkness of the basement, the evil spirits that might massage my feet should they both be out of the covers, the ghosts at the Portuguese restaurant, the ex-girlfriend who is (beyond a shadow of a doubt) a vampire and… well, let’s be honest- I think this weights the scale to “balance” on pretty much ALL my issues.
G’nite honey. …Oh, did I mention I saw a few squirrels in the yard today? He he he.
