Intruder

Who wants to hear a scary story? Don't stop me if you've already heard it, I tend to repeat and repeat stories... they are just that good!!! - Or maybe I'm just that forgetful. Anyway...

So... once upon a time (this is a true Lisa story)...

A few years ago, it was early early on a weekday morning and I was getting ready for work. I was in the basement half awake, half asleep, standing there in the laundry room in my pajamas while I ironed my clothes for work. I'm sure I must have been lost in really deep important thoughts, when I was suddenly startled back into consciousness.
I heard loud clunking footsteps, mansteps, upstairs.

My heart immediately began to race and I froze in place, listening. Oh my gosh, someone is in my house! A man is in my house with his heavy man shoes. Why aren't the dogs going nuts? He must have been hiding in the house all night, making friends with the dogs, so that in the morning he could walk around my house freely to come and get me! I have to leave. I take one step and kick the dog bowl, it goes skidding noisily across the room. I freeze again, for what feels like hours.

Did he hear that? Does he know I'm in the basement?
I don't hear anything, so I quietly and carefully creep toward the basement door and slowly and silently unlock it. I step outside into the cold dark morning. Am I safe? What if he looks out the upstairs window and sees me? He'll see me see him and then he'll HAVE to get me because I've seen him. Aaaaaahhhhhh. I run out of the backyard and into the front of the house. Where do I go? I don't really know my neighbors yet.
I run across the street to the neighbors where there is a light on. The guy answers the door.

Me, frantically: "There is someone in my house and I don't know what to do, I escaped through the back door!!!! Should we call the police?"
Neighbor: "Umm, let me put my clothes on, come on in."
I rush up the steps to look out their front window at my front window to see if I see the silhouetted stranger through the shades in my house.... Nothing.

Neighbor, returns wearing clothes, : Maybe I should go over there and check it out."
Me, Freaking out: "NO! You could get killed!!!" Still staring out the window waiting to see something, anything.
Neighbor: "Ok umm..."
We both just stand there watching out the window, I'm shaking and he is wondering what in the heck he is supposed to do.
Neighbor: Looks at the clock, 5:30 am. "Geez, Andy really has to leave early for work doesn't he?"
Me: What the small talk???? "Yeah." I glance at the clock. Oh my God... Andy doesn't leave till 6! What have I done? Those footsteps were his! How could I have forgotten all about him? Oh my gosh oh my gosh, ohmygoshohmygosh! I am standing in my neighbors house in my pajamas at 5:30 in the morning looking for a lunatic....what do I do? I AM the lunatic!
Me, red-faced, running down the steps and out the door: "Oh, wait, um, Andy hasn't left yet , uh, I gotta go, I'm so sorry!"

I run back across the street barefoot, hair sticking out every which way, make-up plastered well below its original spot, hideous pajamas flapping in the wind... I go to the front door. It's locked, duh. Suddenly, I do not want to walk back through the mud and the thorns on the side of the house into the backyard (didn't notice them earlier),

I knock.
Andy answers the door, staring, bewildered..... "What are you doing out here?"

Me, accusatory: "I have just had the most terrifying 20 minutes of my entire life because of you!" As I storm in and past him, like it his fault that I forgot he existed for a few minutes while he had unknowingly been going about his business of getting ready for work.

Needless to say, the neighbors thought that I was crazy and we never did get to be good friends, and my husband already knew I was crazy so... he didn't think much of it.