Last week, my in-laws (Merle and Peg) stayed with us one night to come with us for an inspection on a house that we made an offer on. No worries, no moving between states this time. In fact it’s just a half mile away from our current house in Valpo. Truth be told, ever since we made the offer, I’ve had trouble sleeping, wondering if we are doing the right thing, and wondering how I will find the time to get my existing house on the market. Last Wednesday night was no different. To top it off, Trent woke me up at 2:30 in the morning to ask where the sleeping mats were so he could sleep on the screened-in-porch. Now I don’t know about you, but I can tell you with certainty, there would have been NO WAY I would have woken my parents up at 2:30 am unless the house was actively on fire. Not a small fire that still has a chance of being contained…but a full on, we’re losing the whole house so get out now, inferno would be the bar for waking them. So, now I’m awake at 2:30. I said to Trent, “Did you actually wake me up for some random, completely optional reason? You are not an infant needing nursing, or a toddler wetting the bed. Find the mats yourself…but try Taryn’s closet.”

The damage was done. I was tossing and turning and having trouble finding sleep again. At 5:30, I decided to get up and work out. I was up, changed and looking through the kitchen junk drawer for my headphones by 5:45. I don’t usually use headphones, but since my spin bike is right outside Merle and Peg’s room, I determined that my Pandora cardio dance mix may not be what they want to hear at 5:45. While testing headphones, I realized I left my water bottle in my car. I abandoned my phone and walked into the garage, to retrieve my water bottle. When I tried to return to the house, I realized that someone locked the handle (we NEVER lock the handle…only the deadbolt which is stupid-proof), and I have now locked myself out of the house…at 5:45 am…when not another soul is awake…and it is pouring rain outside…and my phone is on the kitchen counter attached to the headphones I was testing. Awesome! I tried knocking on the door from the garage, but I quickly realized that this isn’t going to work. So, I opened the garage and walked around to my front door in the pouring rain. I rang the doorbell and leaned in close with my face pressed against the cut glass so I could see if anyone is coming. I rang again. The dogs are going nuts!! I knock. Finally, Travis materialized. I could just observe his jagged image pulling a gray sweater over his head as he descended the stairs.” He opened the front door, took one look at me and said, “What the f**k, Jo!” I looked back at him and replied, “Right! Because this was clearly part of my morning plan. Why did you get fully dressed before coming down?” He said, “Because there were only two people that could be at the door, and for some reason, you weren’t one of them. One was the police, so I guess in that matter, our morning is better than it could be. The other is the contractor, who would be a couple hours early.” In addition to having the other house inspected that morning, we were having a hard wood floor guy come to our existing house to give an estimate for finishing our floors here. Travis followed me to the kitchen and continued with, “I didn’t think my underwear was appropriate attire for either option. What were you doing out there?” Still grumpy, I replied, “Playing in the rain for fun…ugh, someone locked the garage handle, and I got locked out without my phone while grabbing something from the car.”

At that point, I was somewhere between crying and screaming, and I started whipping things around the kitchen in an attempt to clean the abandoned dishes from the night before, no longer certain about working out in my soaked clothes. The interesting thing is that, despite the dogs going crazy, and the doorbell ringing multiple times, absolutely no one else in the house woke up. How is that even possible? So now, I have to wonder if smoke detectors could even wake the zombies living in my house. Just one more thing to worry about when I should be sleeping. So I have that…