Hick Likes to Think of Himself as a Comedian

The paranormal stuff here at the homestead has settled down over the last week or two. It seemed to be building to a fever pitch the week before that Oklahoma earthquake. I've been holding out on you, though, concerning that shaky morning of September 3rd. You might recall that The Pony sent me a text before I was out of bed, alerting me to the quake, lest I hear it on the news and become alarmed. Or, more likely, since he's not the kind to care much about other people, he was a bit shaken. Heh, heh. SHAKEN! By the earthquake! I crack myself up sometimes.

No, I was not awakened by the earthquake on the morning of September 3rd. But I WAS shaken. There I go again. The earthquake happened around 7:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time, about 80 minutes after I was shaken and stirred by a freaky spooky ne'er-do-well entity. Or Hick.

There I was, snoozing peacefully as I often do at 5:40 a.m. on a Saturday morning, stretched out on my left side, snug as a bug in a rug under the quilt my grandma gave us when we got married. Hick insists we use that quilt, even in the summer. So when I go to bed around 2:00 a.m., I crank the air conditioning down to 72 degrees. Doesn't matter to me if Hick is sweating under that quilt at 74 before I get in bed. It's his own fault for insisting on a quilt in the summer.

All of a sudden, I was jolted awake by a kick to my tailbone area! Not down on the pointy end where my tail would be if humans still had them, on my coccyx. (Heh, heh. I said coccyx!) Up a little higher. On that flat, triangle-shaped bone, the sacrum. Yeah. It hurt. It was a KICK. It almost knocked me out of bed! And even though Val has been shrinking recently, she is still a substantial hunk of woman. It takes a lot to kick Val out of bed.

I grabbed at my nightstand with my right arm to steady myself. Then I got up and walked around the end of the bed toward the bathroom, and turned on the light, and commenced to cursing Hick. He squinted at me above his breather mask, kind of like a mole dug out of the ground by Jack and Juno (if they would actually grab the mole, and not just dig up the yard) might look, all bewildered and scared and squinty.

"I can't believe you did that! It HURT! Why did you kick me?"

"I didn't kick you!" I'm pretty sure that's what he said, though it was muffled, because he hadn't taken off his breather yet.

"It almost knocked me out of bed!"

"Val. I didn't kick you."

"You were asleep. How do you know?"

"YOU were asleep. How do you know you weren't dreaming?"

"Because I got KICKED! So hard that it almost knocked me out of bed!"

"Well, it wasn't me."

"It HAD to be you. You're the only one here."

"Val. I can't even get my leg up that high to kick you."

He had a point. I still think he did it, because...well...if he didn't, that's something I don't want to think about.

Yesterday, Hick went to a birthday party at 12:30. He actually left around 9:00, telling me that since the party was at 12:30, he didn't see any reason to come home first. Which only makes sense to International Man of Intrigue Hick the Spy, since it takes 10 minutes from home to town. And from town to home. Anyhoo...time away from Hick is not necessarily a bad thing. I went to Save A Lot for some eggs and paper plates, then to get my 44 oz Diet Coke. Once home, I retired (heh, heh, ain't THAT the truth) to my dark basement lair.

Around 2:29, according to my phone, I heard walking upstairs in the bedroom/bathroom area, and sent Hick a text:

"Are you home? Because I just heard walking upstairs."

"No I'm not"

?

"Just kidding."

I swear, Hick is trying to drive me crazy. I certainly hope that's what he was doing by not owning up to the kick in the butt.