What's Up Downstairs?

Strange, strange goings-on today at the ol' house of Val.

Such oddities. Perhaps explainable, if only I could decipher the code. It started with a noise. Think of a teenage boy standing outside the undoored door of your dark basement lair, clacking two remote controls together. That's what it sounded like to me. So I called out, "Pony! What are you doing?" And he answered me. From the couch at the other end of the basement.

"Nothing! What are YOU doing?"

"Nothing! I thought you were making that noise."

"I thought YOU were making that noise."

We heard it again. Once. Twice. Seriously. WHAT WAS THAT? It was not outside on the porch. That's a thumping sound we hear from the wrasslin' dogs and the tread of delivery men. It was not inside my office. It was just outside the door. Just past the NASCAR bathroom. The Pony ran over. He stepped into my office.

"Are you SURE it wasn't you?"

"Yes! Are you sure it wasn't YOU?"

"Uh huh. I know it was over here." He walked around, looking for items that might have fallen off the shelves. "It didn't sound like it was inside here. Maybe it was these empty soda cans out here on the desk." He stepped back out, to the aluminum Coke cans awaiting crushing after waiting to be stashed in an old Walmart bag after waiting to dry out after rinsing. He squeezed one. "That's what I thought it might have been. These cans expanding due to a change in air pressure. But none of them have been bent. And listen, that's not the sound." He squeezed another.

"And even if it was, how come they have never, ever made a noise like that before? I don't know. Listen. There it was again!" By this time, The Pony had stepped back inside my office. We could clearly see that neither of us was doing anything to cause the sound.

I give up. I have no idea what it was. After that last one, it stopped. Quite odd. In broad daylight in my dark basement lair.

And the noises that used to occur overhead in Genius's room at night, right after he moved off to college...the ones that stopped about a month later? They returned this week. It sounds like someone is having a hoedown after hours.