Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Bump in the Night

BOO!!
Photo Courtesy of Mickey
I love Halloween.  I like scary movies, I like haunted houses, I like being scared.  Each year, Hubby and I go to a different local haunted attraction, and each year we have a blast.  We went to a haunted house in the South Hills of Pittsburgh a few weeks ago, and I loved every second of it.

Another thing that is tradition for Hubby and me involved the Paranormal Activity movies.  We watched the first one through Netflix, and from that point on, we have seen them in the theater.  It is kind of our "thing".  Which is why, last Friday, we met up after Hubby finished work to get dinner, and then head off to see Paranormal Activity 4.  We saw an early evening show, so we were home by ten (we are wild and crazy I tell ya!).  We spent time with the dogs, and watched some tv, then shortly after midnight, headed upstairs.  I immediately fell asleep, while Hubby stayed up for a bit longer.

The next thing I know, I hear the dogs downstairs going CRAZY.  Not just a "I need to go out" bit of barking, or even a "there is someone here" barkfest.  Oh no, this was a full on "INTRUDER INTRUDER DANGER WILL ROBINSON" bark mania.  So, obviously, it woke me up.  Hubby was getting up to see what was going on, when we hear a knock at the door.  At this point, I glance at the clock, and see that it is 1:20 am.  I was not pleased.  We both flew downstairs, and Hubby turned on the porch light, to find a short, middle aged woman on our porch.

We then opened the door (in hindsight, I realize this may have been dangerous, but hey, I was still half asleep).  The woman asks "Is this the Floogendoogen House (name has been changed to protect the privacy of our neighbors)?" to which I snappishly replied NO.  She then asks us if we know where the Floogendoogens live, to which we again respond NO.  She tearfully explains that her son is at their house, and she needs to pick him up, but she does not know where they live.  She looks at us like we are crazy, and we are probably looking at her like she is crazy, and then she just sort of drifts off of our porch, and leaves.

Needless to say, we were spooked.

I don't know why she decided to knock on a stranger's door, and why she chose our house.  I do not know why she could not have tried contacting her son by phone or why she did not know where her son was at 1:20 am.  All I know is she scared the crap out of us.  Perhaps it was the influence of the scary movie we watched, but I was convinced that she was some insane person, who had a son who died many years ago, and she wanders around aimlessly looking for him.  It was beyond bizarre.

As we calmed the dogs down and tried to get back to sleep, curiosity got the best of me.  I did a quick internet search of the name Floogendoogen and our town's name, and sure enough, that is the last name of the people two doors down from us.  Not sure what that says about us, that we are so oblivious to the names of our neighbors, but I was relieved to learn that she was at least looking for an actual house in our neighborhood.

The whole incident was really unsettling, and it made me ponder something.  Each year, we pay money to people and places that are designed to scare us.  But when an actual scary situation occurred, we were both upset by the fright.  I suppose we could have saved ourselves a few bucks.

I would like to note that the Friday night scare did not deter me from taking photographs the next day at a creepy cemetery.