At first, I revel in the freedom. Forty-eight hours of Me Time! I can eat chocolate ice-cream for dinner. And breakfast. I can wear pajamas the whole time and not
wash my hair and no one will care. I can
read trashy movie-star magazines or watch back-to-back episodes of House
Hunters for three hours straight and no one will stop me. Yay!
This is
going to be the best 48 hours of my life!
But then the clock ticks up near 11 pm and I start to feel uncomfortable being So. Very. Alone. All you can hear is me slurping melted Haagen-Dazs, and in the background an animated conversation between those first-time home buyers from Nashville who have recently relocated
to Miami and are shocked at the high prices of beachfront condos. I finally turn off the TV, and my house goes eerily
silent, like it is covered in Saran Wrap.
Saran Wrap made from Abominable Snowmen fluff.
I go from
room to room, making sure every door and window are locked and there are no
signs of Abominable Snowmen footprints or sheddings. I barricade the kitchen door with a chair and
a big bag of recycling, just in case. I
leave the hall light on, something I never do.
The house glows bluish-white, the exact color of Abominable
Snowmen. 
For no absolutely
reason at all, I have trouble falling asleep.
Huh. Weird.
The Abominable
Snowman lurks under my half-empty queen-sized bed, waiting for me. To keep him company, he has brought along his
BFF, Big Foot. How could I ever have
agreed to let The Husband and the boys go camping without me? What
was I thinking?
Ultimately,
I drift into a fitful sleep, but find myself saucer-eyed awake at 5 am, Big
Foot’s finest hour. Of new and immediate
concern are the potential UFOs landing on the roof.
Of course
there are no UFOs, what with the age of the roof and all. No alien in his right mind is going to chance
crashing through the decrepit old shingles.
Neither are there any Abominable Snowmen, as my house is much too warm
now that I have cranked the thermostat to an Abominable-Snowman-wilting 74
degrees.
But we all
know that heat does not bother Big Foot.
He likes warm. That is why he has been sighted in summer as well as winter.
Somehow I
manage to make it through the rest of my day, and around dinner time, a
miraculous thing happens: my loving family
walks in the door.
“What are
you doing home so early?” I ask, trying to contain my relief and pleasure that
they are home so early. I do not want to
disclose my bizarre fear of scary creatures last seen on the Discovery Channel’s
Myths and Legends series. (Really, MOV, what next? The Loch Ness Monster? Unicorns? Centaurs? Gargoyles and Griffins that come to life?) “I thought you wouldn’t be back until
tomorrow.”
“It started
to snow,” says The Husband matter-of-factly with a slight shrug for emphasis,
“we didn’t want to get stuck.”
I nod. I suppress another smile. “You made the right choice, Sweetie.”
“But guess
who I saw at the campground!” squeals my younger son, Short, excitedly.
I wait for
him to tell me one of the usual suspects:
raccoon, deer, hawks, or some happy cartoonish woodland creature.
“I think I saw
Big Foot!” he confirms. I involuntarily gasp. Turns out everyone has seen Big Foot at one time or another.
It’s going to be a long night ….
MOV
