The Cold Smackdown

I am loving this glorious Midwestern winter!

The record setting snowfalls, the glorious bedecking of nature in pristine white, and the gentle quietness that envelops a cold winter’s evening.

Wait. Scratch that last one.

Brett and I have NOT enjoyed a whole lot of quiet in this frigid winter. In fact, we were alarmed one cold night when we heard vandals attacking our siding with baseball bats.

“Vandals! They must be attacking our siding with baseball bats,” were my exact words.

My husband, roused by the banging and clanging, envisioned our teenage attackers armed with spray paint cans. Lurid visions of Prairie Grass Growers splashed across our garage in neon danced in my head.

(We, um, don’t mow our lawn very often, and that was all I could think of for neighborhood vandals to mock.)

I talked Brett out of going out into the blizzard with his little friend (and by that, I mean, “say hello to my little friend,” if you catch my drift).

Instead, we both pulled on our matching Puffy Coats, hats, mittens, and boots to trek outside and face our attackers head on.

Clutching flashlights, we carefully circled the house. We must have looked insane to any observant neighbor. A tall man and a fat woman walking in large circles around their own house.

We were gender-reversed Boris and Natasha.

With no sign of Moose and Squirrel.

Of course, our neighbors should be used to our strange behavior. We also carry flashlights in our bedroom to light our way, because we’re too lazy to walk the seven steps to turn on the lights in the dead of night.

I’m perpetually nervous someone might see the flashlight glow, and knowing we have no children who would foolishly play with flashlights, call the police and swear burglars have invaded our house and are currently rifling through my jewelry box.

Those burglars would be mighty disappointed, if that were indeed the case. They might even leave US money.

After four circles, and two false sightings (tree sapling, me), (lawn spinner, Brett), we were stumped. Back inside, we heard the same cracking sound.

Convinced the teenagers were back, Brett took another lone trip around the house to no avail.

Back inside, together again; we realized the cracking sound must just be a quirk of our house. Since that night, we’ve come to expect what we call the Bat Attack every time the temperatures fall below freezing.

The day after our brave trek around our house, my neighbor flagged me down in the driveway as I was trying to leave for work.

“We saw all these footprints around your house this morning. My husband thinks someone may have been casing your house.”

I paused for a moment. “Actually, that was us.”

Shock and surprise registered across her face. “Whatever were you doing out in the middle of the blizzard in the middle of the night?”

I thought for a second and finally told her the whole long story. I left her with eyebrows raised and a neck tilt that had me suspecting the next time vandals attacked our house, the graffitied message might read, “Moose and Squirrel Haters Live Here.”

And that my friends, is yet another reason why our neighbors think we’re so weird.

(I think they may be right.)