10:30pm, Monday night. Getting ready to invite a visitor into my bed because my husband is gone for the night. Some almost imperceptible urge makes me tiptoe to the front of the house and look out.
Dammit.
So much for sliding between the sheets.
My neighbors’ garbage cans line the street.
Gabe is out of town, which means the lady who is easily the champion of Trash Jenga at our house will have to take the trash not only out, but all the way to the curb. In the dark. On our new street. With shady characters skulking about.
I contemplate just not doing it…letting the trash accumulate for one more week. I glance out back at our can and it’s clear. If we miss even one trash day, our new back yard will officially be declared the town dump.
I look wistfully at my bed. My fuzzy bed-mate wags her tail. Sorry to disappoint, my friend.
I glance out the front door again and watch the passers-by for a minute. We live on a main thoroughfare and there’s quite a bit of foot traffic even at 10:30pm on a Monday night. They’re probably all well-intentioned people. Probably. Maybe.
I’m not a person who’s generally afraid of things like being alone but tonight, it’s just me and 2 little kids sleeping upstairs. There’s no one to call if I feel threatened.
Oh, it’s fine, I tell myself. I shake off the scary thoughts, open the gate and struggle to roll the behemoth trashcan down the driveway.
About halfway down, a guy with a backpack strolls into view. I watch him to make sure he keeps moving. He does and I continue towards my destination. I’m relaxed. I’m loose. I’m not scared at all. ACK!!! A moth flutters around my nose and I screech like it’s a bat, swatting at my face and trotting around like a spastic horse.
Once the dreaded bat-moth is scared away, I pull the trashcan towards the end of the long driveway. A lone man on the opposite side of the street looks up and sees me. He quickly crosses a 4-lane street, dodging cars as he does. My stomach seizes up. I drop the trashcan where it is and speed-walk back up the driveway. As I near our gate, I glance back. He is standing at the end of our driveway looking at me. I break into a full run.
Through the gate I sprint, skipping stairs as I fly onto the deck and into the house. I lock the door, heart pounding. The dog and I stand there watching through the glass door. We’re quiet for a minute, her waiting for my cue that something is amiss, me waiting for hers.
After a few minutes, we tiptoe around the house looking out windows and doors, watching for movement in the yard. It’s completely quiet except for the sound of the air conditioner and the soft clickety-clack of doggy toenails on the hardwood floors.
We see nothing.
We start to breathe again, canine and I. We stop the ping-ponging of wide-eyed looks back and forth to each others’ faces for reassurance every few seconds. Eventually we contemplate bed once again, where her calm presence will comfort me in a new way.
I know there’s a strong chance that man meant me no harm whatsoever. I hate judging someone on nothing but an action that could be completely innocent. But my intuition is powerful. I used to ignore it, downplay it, talk over it. Now I listen to it. I heed it. I rarely even ask questions.
Was I in danger last night? Therefore putting my kids in danger? We’ll never know.
But one thing we know for sure. I’m never ever taking the trash out again. It’s clearly much too dangerous.
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HOLY freakiness! That sounded like a scary suspense movie and made my heart race a little.
I would have done the same thing. If the trash is not taken out though by the Mr. when he gets home at night from his work then it builds for another week. I dont go to the trash can once it gets dark even if he IS home. He has trash duty.
I’m so with you. I don’t DO trash. If it had been any other time except post-moving, I’d have left it. Turns out I shoulda!
Nighttime + dude crossing 4 lanes of traffic and then standing there at the end the driveway looking at you? SCARY. Running away was brilliant and smart. I would have done the *exact same thing*. (((hugs))) (The comforting type of hugs.)
Thanks. I’m pretty sure I ran faster than I’ve ever run. Even though I don’t do a lot of running these days. ; )
Never woulda pegged you as a scaredy-cat….
That’s why I’m always saying….”Don’t PEG me!”
Nah, I’m usually not scared. I lived alone for a very long time and I generally think people aren’t out to harm me. But I got a very intense feeling of fear and ya know? Better safe than sorry.
Kids’ll do that to you as well. Ya know, when you have someone to protect.
Always listen to that interior voice. Always. Thump-thump-thump…that’s my heart beating out of my chest reading this.
I’m with you. I didn’t always listen to it so well when I was younger but now? I trust it. I really do.
Crazy scary, Toulouse. Glad you are okay. And I don’t do trash either. I’d rather risk getting a ticket by throwing it out in the public trash can on the corner.
Imagine what my trash was like when I lived alone before I got married. If my dad hadn’t dropped by every now and then to take it out, the whole house woulda been piles of it!
That story is totally freaky. Having a dog helps me feel safer, but STILL. I get nervous walking from my car to my house after dark, but mostly because of the skunks in our neighborhood that are the size of small bears. I’m glad you are safe.
I don’t normally get scared and that’s what scared me. I do believe in intuition. Once in grad school, I was lying out in the sun on the grass near my apartment. A guy drove by several times and then finally got out and approached me. He said he was lost and asked if I had a phone book he could look in. Trusting me said, “Sure, come this way…” And about the time I’d taken 2 or 3 steps, I got a strange, eerie feeling that caused me to pause and tell him I’d just moved in and hadn’t gotten a phone book yet. Not long after, the news reported some guy had been randomly raping girls in their apartments. I don’t know if it was the same guy but…
I listen to my intuition.
Humans are the only species that, when we are afraid, we tell ourselves it’s no big. If a dog is afraid, it will run or bark, it will react.
Invest in the book THE GIFT OF FEAR. ;o)
Omg how scary! I am a single mom so unfortunately there no longer is a mr to take it out, so the kids and I do it in the am before we leave for school. Except the nazi recycling guy comes at 530 in the am to collect. I always put it out late for your very reason, but he refuses to stop and collect it when he drives by my house at 830. He did at first grumbling to me about my “time” frame in his route. What he fails to realize is I’m alone on a super busy intersection, and the road by driveway leads to the ghetto 5 miles down the road. No ma’am i am not gonna risk my life n limb taking out the recycling in the middle of the night cause his lazy ass can’t collect it at normal people time. Ty for sharing and helping me feel slightly less neurotic 😉
Ugh, how awful. Can you put it out the evening before collection BEFORE it gets dark???
I have in the past , but lovely weird people walk by and pilfer through my trash or use it as their own garbage can. If they could at least have the common sense to put it in the right bin so my nazi garbage guy doesnt yell al me I would be much obliged to allow them to use it :p
I hear ya. I grew up in the country, where you knew everyone and left your door unlocked. Then I moved to a big city, and it was so different. I remember one night a girlfriend and I were out downtown and had gotten slightly drunk. We started walking back to my place (it was about 10 mins away) and I happened to look back and saw this guy start to follow us. I got a bad feeling in my stomach. Somehow, in my drunken haze, I knew he was trouble. Taxi’s here in my city don’t usually get flagged down (but after club hours they realize ca-ching!) but I managed to flag one down and as we crawled in he said “I saw that guy following you and decided to pull over even though I had another call” I gave him a 10$ tip that night.