when a stranger calls

Wednesday night, at a quarter after midnight, the phone rang and jolted me out of sleep and into the creeps. I fumbled for my glasses and the lamp; got up and pulled on a robe; and went cautiously downstairs to check the caller ID. "Private Number," it said.

Now, logically, it was a wrong number and nothing to worry about. But logic is not my forte in the middle of the night when I am alone in the house, and all I could think about was these books I would read as a kid where the thieves call the house to see if anyone is home before they break in. Normally the heroine would thwart the intruders, with the aid of her fellow fifth-graders and a friendly policeman. But all my friends were asleep and all the policemen I know were off-duty.

But, the reason I was alone in the house to begin with was that Dan & Anne were in California, where it was three hours earlier. So I called Dan's cell phone. Dan gamely played along and made small talk with groggy creeped-out me until I felt safe enough to go back to bed. ("We'll invest in a pit bull," he said.) I have no idea how long it took me to get back to sleep, but I woke up Thursday morning sore from my muscles being stress-tight all night.

I figured I was done with that creepy feeling, though, since Laura was scheduled to get back from Minnesota last night (yes, we have a new person in household!) and I would no longer be alone in the house. But before she arrived, as I was puttering around the house, I noticed a pair of sunglasses sitting on the back porch table that were definitely not there yesterday morning. So someone was on our back porch yesterday ... I managed to sleep through the night pretty well, but I am really looking forward to Dan and Anne's return, when I will feel totally safe again!