Thursday, March 4, 2010

Rude Awakening




Who popped the bubble wrap?

Not us Momma!

So I received a lovely parcel of little pressies, including posh little leopard print catnip mousies, from Lovely Helena. (Thank You Helena, you are wonderful!)
In this box was bubble wrap. Big bubbles, big bang when popped. Especially at 3:00 am!

I was in the middle of somewhat precarious sleep to begin with. Cricket was on my legs as usual and Miss Billie was on my left side. Daddyman was snoring blissfully and the boy kitties were I think, somewhere upstairs. Suddenly I woke up to this loud Pop! Pop! Pop!
Scared the life out of me! See, I think a little background is needed to explain why I thought it was something very scary.

A couple of summers ago we had a very rainy couple of weeks. The house being old, has old wiring and my husband had not been able to get to all of it. (He's very good at wiring anything electrical.) It seems that some of the wiring didn't like the damp air. (this is my husband's reasoning for why it happened out of the blue)
The light switch in our dining room sparked. I mean flames shot out of it! And it made a loud POP noise as it did. I was absolutely terrified and even though power in the house didn't go out I turned off anything that was on. The sparking barely lasted a few seconds and then all was eerily calm. I called my husband at work. "Flames shot out of the dining room wall!"
He rushed home to find a freaked out wife and daughter. The cats were not fazed a bit of course even though I got out the PTU's ready to carry them out of our money pit, death trap house.
He turned off the breaker and got all the tools and wiring needed to do what needed to be done. A half hour later all was fixed. I saw the scorch mark on the plaster in the wall which was pretty scary. The metal box the switch is set into prevented it from catching fire.

So, being sleepy, with that memory in the back of my mind, I awoke to the popping noise terrified that it was happening again, this time in the family room.
No. It was bubble wrap. Being popped by my daughter and her boyfriend while they ate Ramen noodle soup and watched X Files.
GRRR!
Not only did it frighten me and my husband, the cats were really upset. Cricket flew off the bed. I think poor Billie halfway fell off the bed as she tried to jump off. And the two boys were no where to be found.

The teenagers sheepishly apologized, though I got the feeling they thought I had lost my mind. I didn't express anger, just complete fear and sleepy confusion. Husband just grumbled and fell back to sleep. (Of course.)

Anyway, that was my night. I'm tired. The kitties are napping. The bubble wrap is still here, but only because Cody seems to like the padding in the box as you can see from the picture. That cat has never met a box that he hasn't tried to crawl in and nap in.

I hope nothing goes bump or pop in the night for any of you!

7 comments:

Amy & the house of cats said...

Ok, I totally understand why that would freak you out! The electrical in our house isn't great (seriously half the upstairs, half the downstairs and the front exterior are all on one circuit) so I worry about that stuff all the time. We had a similar light switch issue at one point too, though it was from trying to put a new switch plate on it (the thing was so crammed with wires that the screw for the switchplate hit them, sparked, and half the house went out - oh, yeah, on the day of our first dinner party at the house!) I really want the whole place rewired, but I do worry about that all the time. That popping would have freaked me out too!

We hope you don't have anything like that (the fire or the popping bubbles waking you up) happen again!

Anonymous said...

Mom thinks that would freak her out too, especially since we had the fire scare about 1 month ago. We hope you can get wrapped up and mailed to our house in that box!

Rosemary B❤️ said...

Oh my cat! I think my mom would have freaked too, then she would have gotten crabby about the bubble wrap being popped while she was in deep snooze and nearly got a heart attack!

Our house is pretty new (12 years) and we have electrical issues. Our builder ... I think they hired high school drop outs to build this house... seriously. Like fresh out of dropped out high school.

I hope all of you have warmer days and sunshine. I am sick of cold and winter and WIND. I am sick of wind

bonkbonkbonkbonkkkkk

Shaggy and Scout said...

Whoa, scary!
We bet the teens thought you lost your mind though, self centered as they tend to be you know.
(Our boy eats tons of Ramen noodles)
Typical dad. Roll over, keep snoring. And the Boy kitties...just like dad!

Sweet Purrfections said...

Leave it to teenagers!

JB's Big and Small Worlds said...

Uh oh.....electrical stuff is scary!
My mom has taken to wearing ear plugs at night cuz Charli is so loud all night. Probably not a good idea to not hear anything though.
--JB

Mrs Mac said...

LOL! Oh dear- sorry! And here's me thinking that bubble wrap was better to put in than shredded paper as the mogs would shred it further and make a mess!!!