Things That SO Stump in the Night

Well, you know it was bound to happen. Just a matter of time. Now I've come to my realization, and it's one of the fateful kind...WHOA! Val is sounding a little like the late great Mr. Croce there. Only without the guitar. And unable to carry a tune in a bucket.

Last night, The Pony went upstairs around 9:30 in order to run the shower for over an hour and drain all the hot water from the tank. Not that Val's complainin'. She's a morning-shower kind of gal. But you would think The Pony was making dinner in there, washing the lettuce, installing a garbage disposal, what with all the time he takes.

I went out of my dark basement lair at 10:20, making a stop by the NASCAR bathroom on the way. It's my routine every night. Dinner. Computer. Bathroom. Recliner to watch TV. Okay, maybe the bathroom gets more than one step in the routine. Unlike the workplace, I am not always third in line here. Gotta make hay while the sun shines, and go potty when there's no line. Too bad my mom's not around to cross stitch that on a pillow for me.

I settled down in the blue recliner in front of the big screen TV, and started watching a DVR of Tiny House Nation. I don't know which of the overpriced, non-aerodynamic, glorified camping trailers the folk bought, because I nodded off to sleep. I woke up at 11:45, decided I'd run that show back to see the end...then woke up again at 12:10. Huh. I decided it was time to go to bed. So I hoisted myself out of that old recliner and old-lady-hobbled to the NASCAR bathroom. Seeing as how there was no line, you know.

I stumped past the bottom of the stairs, past Genius's mostly-vacant desk, past the shelves holding DVDs--and I heard it! A roaring noise. Huh. The closer I got to the bathroom/lair end of the basement, the louder that roaring noise got. DARN! I forgot to turn off my under-desk heater! Good thing I decided to go to the bathroom and heard it. Don't want to leave THAT energy hog running for 24 hours.

I took a couple more steps, rounded the corner by the old desk the boys used to sit under and play Nintendo on a little TV, and discovered that the roaring noise was not in my office.

THE LIGHT WAS ON IN THE NASCAR BATHROOM!

That was kind of eerie. The ceiling light has a built-in exhaust fan. Where it exhausts to, being in the middle of the basement, I don't know. But Hick has a thing about bathroom lights always having that automatic exhaust fan. So that light was on, with the fan roaring, when I clearly remembered turning that light off. Seriously. I go in there all the time, and always turn off the light. Because nobody wants to hear that fan running. You can even hear it upstairs in Hick's La-Z-Boy.

Huh. Surely The Pony had come back downstairs for something after his shower. And maybe he went in the NASCAR bathroom. You know, because he was so busy during his hour shower that he didn't have time to use the bathroom up there. Yeah. I'm sure that was it. The Pony had come downstairs while I was snoozing in the recliner, and had not awakened me. Then he forgot to turn off the bathroom light. Uh huh. I did my business, and went upstairs.

The Pony drove his Ford Ranger to school today because he was staying after with his inventor club. Hick was running late this morning, which threw a monkey wrench into our well-oiled machine. The Pony left before I did, and once at school we only see each other for 30 seconds when he comes to my room to get his lunch. Then after his inventor club, he went out to supper with the other little inventors. So I didn't get to talk to him until about an hour ago.

"Pony! Come in here where you can hear me. Did you come back downstairs last night? After your shower?"

"No. Why?'

"So you didn't come down while I was sleeping in the recliner?"

"Uh...NO!"

"Well...I fell asleep, and when I woke up and came over here to the bathroom...I thought I heard my heater running. BUT IT WAS THE LIGHT AND FAN IN THE BATHROOM! Are you sure you didn't come down for something?"

"NO! EEEE!"

"You know I always turn off the light..."

"I KNOW!"

"And I would have seen the light shining on the wall from the recliner if I'd left it on, and come back to turn it off..."

"Yeah!"

"And I would have heard the noise of the exhaust fan. We're always hearing that soda tab opening noise. I'm sure I would have heard something as loud as that fan..."

"YES!"

We can't explain it. I turned off the light. The light was on again almost two hours later. Something fishy is going on here.