Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Big Bang Theory

I am home alone.
Richard left on Sunday morning to go to Milwaukee for some business meetings and will return tonight.
My first evening home alone was uneventful. Lauren spent the night with me and I slept soundly.
Last night was a little more interesting.
At 3:30, I heard a very loud BANG followed by Pedro growling. I sat up in bed (positive that by exposing my back to the wall that I was sacrificing any safety I might have had by staying in bed), groped for my glasses and turned on the light. Pedro was still growling and the cat ran for the back door.
WHAT was going on?
After several hours (ok, seconds), I texted Richard (as if he could help me), and stumbled to the bathroom, turning on every light that I passed.
I continued to hear very loud bangs and I was convinced that the boogey man was trying to get in through the roof to steal my baby and leave me for dead (nice, huh? Thanks, local news.).
I left most of the lights burning and went back to bed. Still, bangs were coming from overhead, but Pedro had stopped growling so I began to relax enough to THINK.
That's when I came up with this theory:
The temperature literally went from 35 degrees to 20 degrees below zero over a period of 36 hours. There was a lot of moisture in the air when it warmed up, and I can only imagine in the wooden eaves of our roof. As the temperature dropped quickly, that moisture had to go somewhere, resulting in the loud popping and banging that woke the three of us up.
I'm a freaking genius.

This entire scenario took place over the course of about 4 minutes--one tenth of the time it took me to type it all out.

11 comments:

angie said...

wow! that is genius. i would have settled on the boogeyman theory and cried my way to my parents'. well done!

Anonymous said...

Erin, the roof of our old house used to make those sounds too. It used to scare the crap out of me.

erin said...

I'm not alone!! (Or crazy...)

Unknown said...

if it makes you feel safe to think it's the rafters that's fine but eveyone knows when you hear thse sounds overhead it can only mean one thing.SPACE EELS!

Jolene said...

Space eels!! LOL!!! That is the best ever and I'm going to tell my kids that the next time they hear a sound that scares them. :)

Erin, I'm glad you were able to draw a conclusion that let you sleep again. Shweww!

Katie R. said...

Although it went fast, I understand those were the worst "hours" of your life, at the time. :) I have soooo been there. Glad it was not the boogey man or sapce eels.

Jodi said...

I had trouble sleeping last night too. Brian was off with Rich doing who knows what until who knows when! At least they got to see each other for a while.

kristi noser said...

Our house did that once!
I called John home from work.
He found space eels in the attic. Sorry Erin.
Don't go up there.

Unknown said...

I love reading your blogs. Jon's parents' deck does that all the time too.

-V- said...

That's it, Erin. You gotta post a dream epic on space eels tomorrow - it must be written! ;-)

Kelli said...

Our deck does that all.winter.long. Especially unnerving when you're sitting in the family room watching a particularly suspenseful movie when that sucker launches one of those really loud ones. 'Bout sends you right off the couch.