While I know there are some famous authors who could do it, for me, there is no possible way to accurately represent the experience I had last night. All I can think is that if there was a real life representation of the movie The Blair Witch Project, I lived it.We had a house showing scheduled for this weekend--the exact weekend that John and I were flying to Altoona so that he could pull call. I spent about eight hours making arrangements for Gretchen (Glo's best friend from Interlochen, and who is currently studying French horn at Michigan) to get the animals out of the house during the showing. Gretchen has watched our animals before, and she's a dream dog-watcher, but making sure the house is ready to show while getting rid of any and all animal paraphernalia? It's a very large task.
Usually I just ask Gretchen to watch the animals, she shows up after we leave, and she leaves before we show up again, and I put money in her Venmo account. Meanwhile, she sits back and lives life to the fullest in our pimped-out house. But this time, I texted her over several days, trying to figure out how it would be easiest to get our three cats and four dogs out of the house. That alone would be a daunting task, but she also happened to have USO rehearsal at the exact same time that our house showing was scheduled.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, the polar vortex descended on Michigan this week, breaking temperature records that had stood for over 100 years. During the day, the temperature was -11, but with the wind chill, it was -32. So there was no just leaving the animals out in the car during rehearsal--they had to be brought in, or some freakish Ann Arborite would, for sure, call the police. So in a wave of brilliance on my part, I wondered if a friend of hers could just sit in the running car for 90 minutes.
Add to all of this, three pages of instruction to get it all done. Things like "hide the cat box in the appointed corner of the garage", or "Roxy and Dash are old and will need help getting in the car", or "there's a flattened box between the back of the car and the front seat so that Cherry won't jump in your lap". Gretchen was thinking ahead, and knew that we wouldn't have room in one car for all seven animals, so she asked if someone could come stay at the house the night before and help her the next morning. As she put it, "HE has a car." Yeah, I had to just take a deep breath.
It was this massive puzzle that needed to be solved.
One key element: I needed two cat kennels to transport the cats from the car to Gretchen's apartment.
Memory Flashback: When I lived in Lubbock, our three cats had to go to the vet for their shots. My parents didn't believe in kennels, but thought it was an okay idea to just carry the cats into the vet. And I remember that the vet's office was on a very busy street in the middle of the city. Well Noah, our half-feral cat, freaked out as any self-respecting cat would do when the cars when flying by, and jumped out of my stepfather's arms. Cue another moment that was similar to what I spent half my teenage life doing--chasing down animals. He disappeared immediately, and we had no idea where he had gone (picture a really busy parking lot next to a busy street). We spent over an hour combing the adjoining neighborhood for him, but just when we were about to give up, someone found him in the engine of our car. Maybe this is why I am so uptight about our animals being confined. Hmmm....
So yeah, I have since adopted the practice of only transporting cats in kennels. John was leaving for Altoona a day before I was, and I had given him a list of things that he could do to help me get everything ready for the house showing. One of those items was to find me two cat kennels. He told me that they were out in the barn, and he would get them for me.
So last night, I couldn't find them in the house, so I texted him about it. Where were they? He called me immediately, and I could tell from his sheepish "hello" that there was a glitch. Yep, you guessed it--he'd forgotten to get the kennels out of the barn.
I never go in the barn. My organized, anal self can't take it, especially now that over half of our house is stored out in the barn. John sets traps for mice, and last summer, when we needed something in the barn, there was a huge ants nest. John has even found a cat in the barn, hunting. And mice chew through anything that is soft.
And there is no electricity out there...which means there is no light.
By the time I asked John about the kennels, it was eight or nine o'clock at night. And I don't know if there was no light in the sky because it was cloudy, or because the moon wasn't full, but let me tell you, it was pitch black. And did I mention the polar vortex? Believe it or not, it gets colder at night (-44 degrees to be exact).
In any normal situation, I would take one of our handy-dandy, trusty canines with me, but even animals can't be out in this cold.
Another side note: KitTen has loved going outside lately, because the Catio has been covered in snow. He loves to splay his front paws underneath the snow, watch the snow move, think it's some kind of creature, and jump on the moving snow. It's adorable. But with the frigid temperatures, he goes outside, tries to lay down and fluff up his fur, but can't sit still for more than five seconds because the cold is so uncomfortable. It took him all of 20 seconds to come meowing to the door yesterday to get back inside.
So it's rough for the dogs, because they have to actually go into the snow to do their business. And Mr. Dash, the man dog whom I would choose to take, has the thinnest coat of all.
So I knew it was up to me. I alone had to head out into the dark of night, into the den of Satan's little helper, to find the cat kennels.
I was in my striped long john pajamas, but I figured if I was going to die, it didn't matter what I was wearing. And I had wool socks. So I threw on my fuz-ZEE boots, my dress wool coat (it's the warmest one I have), my red pashmina scarf, Glo's St. Petersburg hat with the braided yarn hair on the sides, and some new wool mittens that I bought Glo for Christmas and that she had left behind. Man, thank goodness for Glo!
I didn't have a flashlight. Or maybe we did somewhere in a drawer, but I wasn't thinking particularly clearly with the thought of meeting The Grim Reaper within the next few moments. But I had my phone. And it has a flashlight.
Did I mention that there's also ten inches of snow on the ground....and the barn has no road to it....and the barn sits in the middle of the haunted woods?
I took a deep breath, said goodbye to the life I love, and stepped outside. The light from the porch extended all of about ten feet, and I had another 200 feet to go. The wind hit my face and took my breath away. I put my head down and moved forward.
So what does anyone do when faced with terror? What do I do when I worry that some rapist is going to jump out of the woods along my walking trail in Dexter? And what did I already have in my hand?
I called Ethan. Okay, the first call didn't go through, and I wondered if it was one of those times that it's too cold for iPhones to work. And would that affect the flashlight? These are important questions, people!
I'm honestly not sure why Ethan got the phone call. Maybe because I was too angry at John, and because Hannah rarely answers (and Mark isn't even a possibility), and I would've called Glo, but you know, she's away being all righteous and everything. But I called Cheese.
I can't even remember what I said to Cheese except that I was FREAKING SCARED! And for those of you who have been to Halloweekends with me, when I'm scared, it's a mixture of screaming and laughing. And in this case, heavy breathing.
Cheese immediately sympathized with the fact that I had to enter the barn. It's bad enough in the daylight, but at night? I made it through the snow quickly enough, but I looked down at the doorknob and didn't even want to turn it. What would be lurking behind the door?
You know how when you watch a scary movie and afterwards, when you have to go to your room or the bathroom, you keep your back against the wall, and move blindly and quickly to your destination? As soon as I got that door open, I got on the other side and slammed it closed with my back against it. And I started screaming.
It was a mixture of talking to Cheese (I think he might have been talking about sports or something) and then going quiet because I was sure that I had heard something. But then I screamed "I hear something!" And I would try and describe what I heard but my voice would get louder and higher and more screaming would ensue. And then I would go dead silent because, you know, whatever was lurking in the dark certainly didn't already know that I was there...from my screaming....
And of course, I could only see what was directly in front of me, and every sound seemed to NOT be in that line of sight. And you know what that means....
DIANA!!
Meanwhile, Cheese was talking about some rabbit that was probably hiding in the barn whom I was scaring spitless with my screaming and hysteria. And who was willing to risk his own life by running out into the cold instead of staying in the barn with the crazy, screaming woman.
So John had said that the kennels were on the "side of the tractor". Which side, I didn't know. And that meant that I had to actually leave the wall and walk into the middle of the dark barn. (Ethan was on speaker phone so that I could freely move the flashlight around.). It must have been every two or three steps, I was screaming again about something that I heard or saw. And then I was dead silent. (Catch that? Dead silent?) And I was laughing hysterically. Oh my gosh, words don't even do the situation justice. I seriously have tears rolling down my cheeks as I'm writing this!
Can you imagine what I looked like in my get-up, with my tiny iPhone flashlight, screaming and laughing in the dark and creepy barn? I tell you--if Hannah had been on the other line, we would have been laughing so hard that we would have both peed our pants. From fright or hysteria, I can't tell you, but there would definitely have been leakage.
Cheese was awesome though. He just stayed on the line. And I found the kennels and turned around.
And that's when I thought I was done for.
On the wall, I spotted some kind of sadistic graffiti that I was sure a serial killer had left for me, knowing that I would be in the barn that night. That exact night. Of course, I couldn't see it well because of the minuscule beam from my iPhone flashlight. And I was sure I was a goner.
And it was silent on the other end. I do believe Ethan wondered if I was actually facing Jeffrey Dahmer.
In the creepiest letters, I could make out "YOU SIT ON A...."
Mr. Dahmer was speaking directly to me, and I was sure that if I turned around, he would be there. And I was so freaking scared that I couldn't even scream.
I got out the door as fast as I possibly could. Of course, with the iPhone in one hand, I couldn't carry both of the kennels out so I had to stick my head back in the barn to get the second one. And when I got that door closed for the second time, I braced myself against it, not sure that I could actually take another step.
But fear got the best of me, and I grabbed the handles of both kennels in one hand and bee-lined it out of there. I think it was one of those Herculean moments where people get super-human strength when there is imminent danger. All I could focus on was getting back to the house...and I was screaming all the way.
And then it happened.
Cheese's voice disappeared on the other line and was replaced with white noise...exactly like the
noise from The Ring (possibly the scariest movie on planet Earth). Anytime Ethan would try and say something to me, the white noise would cover what he was saying. Like Lucifer himself was possessing the phone line and attempting to gain control over my last movements.
I hung up.
And ran!
And screamed some more!
All while laughing. And carrying those kennels in one hand and my iPhone in the other.
Like, I ran like that pack of wolves WAS indeed chasing me. Who cared about snow, or polar vortices, or cat kennels, or anything? I needed to save my immortal soul!
I could hardly believe it when I got the door open, threw the kennels inside, slammed the door and ran for my life into the kitchen.
And in a funny turn of events, after getting up at 6 a.m. today to get last minute stuff done at the house, our showing was cancelled this afternoon.
Satan has won.
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