Flat Cat Bat

Copper was away from home last night to attend a seminar for work today. I struggle when he is away from home, especially overnight. Thankfully, it is not often (my heart goes out to military wives and those whose hubbies are away from home for extended periods of time). But each time I am alone at night, I become acutely aware of every creak and noise in my house, imagining the worse case scenario around every corner, and frightening myself to the point of goosebumps.

Last night, just before drifting off at a little past 1:00 am, there came a substantial crash from downstairs that sounded like glass breaking. Never one to sit idly by and ponder the possibility that someone is breaking into my house, I sat bolt upright and then leapt out of bed, grabbed my aluminum baseball bat, and flicked on every light on my way down the stairs to confront whomever was breaking into my home. I made lots of noise, deliberately, hoping to scare off the intruder before I had to confront him with my courage and my bat.

I whipped around the corner and saw two eyes staring right at me ~ dead ahead at almost eye level, like someone was crouched at my back door. Forgetting to turn on the light, I screamed and swung furiously at the eyes with all my might. I made contact. Hard. But but it was not with an intruder. And thankfully, it was also not with the owner of the very large eyes, my terrified cat Turtle, who managed to leap to safety about .0003 seconds before I flattened her. My blow landed instead on the sofa, effectively pounding the heck out of three unsuspecting down pillows with a loud but unsatisfying "whump".

Turtle has only come out of hiding once today, giving me an evil furtive stare as she darted to her food dish and then back to her secret happy place. My attempted apology was met with indignant hissing. I deserve it, I guess, for just about taking my beloved cat out with my baseball bat, thereby accidentally transforming the sweet, giant fluffball with eyes into a cat shaped pancake. Even though I regret scaring her, I'll bet that will be the last picture frame she'll ever knock over in the middle of the night. Which is much appreciated.

As for me, I gained new respect for myself. If that had been an intruder, he would have gotten a taste of the business end of my bat instead of my couch... or my cat.