I had me one of them there adventures last night.

There I was, sleeping soundly at three o'clock in the morning when, BANG BANG BANG...BANG rousted me from my sweet reveries. The Buxom and Comely and Easily Terrified Boudicca also rousted herself (most likely from some equally sweet reveries), and I immediately reached for my beatin' stick.

Now, a couple of months ago, I was upstairs at my computer, the wife was working, and I was typing away on a book. I had just finished a chapter or a paragraph or an adjective or something, and I leaned back to re-read what I had just crafted. That's when I heard a noise what sounded like the back storm door closing. No one should be coming in there, so I immediately went into defensive mode. I grabbed the only weapon at my disposal...which turned out to be a 12-lb dumbbell and crept downstairs to see if my home had been violated. Everything was safely locked up, and no one was around, so I chalked it up to my imagination. But, I decided that I needed a better weapon. Thus, the beatin' stick was born. It's about three feet of solid lumber, 1x1, with the end cut at an angle. It's probably not the most wicked looked thing in the world, but I figure it'll bust someone's scalp open, should I need it to.

Anyway, the wife checks on the kids, and it wasn't either of them that made the noise. So, that meant I had to investigate the downstairs. I crept down the stairs, all Scooby-Doo like. You could almost hear the "doot, doot, doooooooooo, doot-doo-doo" music going as I moved forward. My ears were pricked, listening for any repeating noises or noises of someone deciding they needed to escape, lest they met my wrath and the business end of my cudgel. I first checked the living room, where all the plastic bins that housed the Christmas decorations were stacked, thinking that the perp might have knocked over one of those as the sound was a bit "plasticky" (if you catch my drift). Nothing. I peeped the back door, to make sure it was locked. Still locked tight. I check the front door. Nothing doing. I scope the windows. Nothing. Everything is whole and unscathed.

Then I hear something upstairs. Footsteps. Oh, they're near my family. Time to die, perp!

Only, Boudicca slinks downstairs to tell me Cookie is going to the bathroom, and that I shouldn't run up the stairs, screaming like a battle-enraged, blue-faced warrior with designs on braining her. We together do another security sweep around the perimeter, and find nothing. We wonder if, perhaps, a bat or something flew into our nice, new, awesome window in the kitchen. Shrugging, we decide that's a distinct possibility. Outside lights are on, to scare away the bad guys. We return to bed. The wife turns on the closet light, to make people think that someone is up. The hounds are released. Ninjas stand at the four corners of the house, ready to strike.

The beatin' stick was replaced in its handy location next to my side of the bed. The wife makes me turn off my humidifier, so we can listen. And we do for the next thirty minutes. Every creak and groan of the house causes one or both of us to stir. I stare, wide-eyed, at the doorway to the kids bathroom, thinking it looks somewhat like a figure standing there, knife in hand, waiting for me to sleep. But, I keep my eyelids hooded. When he comes for me, I'll knock his head clean off.

Finally, the alarm goes off. I sit up, dragging my worthless ass out of the bed. Fatigue crushes me, weighing down on me. The night was filled with fitful sleep, tossing and turning, and more listening. Always listening. Always greeted with silence.

I strip down, shuffling naked to the bathroom. Pulling back the shower curtain, I find a bottle of body wash has fallen from the top of the shower and now rests quietly in the basin of the tub. Beside it, guiltily, is the suction-cup fastener to which the bottle had been affixed. Here is my perp. Here is the reason I spent the night wondering when they were coming for me, and could I get to them before they got to my kids.

I grabbed the stick and beat the hell out of the bottle. That'll show that motherfucker to mess with the likes of me.