But, Why Do I Have To Die?

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One of the challenges that has come with moving from a single level apartment to a home with three floors is contending with the bumps and creaks in the night. Like anything else standing, a house is a structure that carries the burden of the weight of itself. It's prone to a few moans and groans, cracks and pops. Aside from that, most of the knocks that go bump in the night are the ice maker in the refrigerator, a broom falling or my son dropping his cell phone on the floor because he's finally released his death grip on it in his sleep.

I know this and by now the wife should too, but without fail, at least once every two weeks the following occurs:

Wife(shaking me awake): "Did you hear that?"

Me: "Who are you?"

Wife (In her quietest screaming whisper): "Eric! Get up! I heard something."

Me: "Where am I?"

Wife(now elbowing me in my ribs): "Eric!"

Me: "The alarm is on, so we're fine."

Wife: "You're the man of the house! You have to go check."

At this point I am awake and my eyes are rolling around in my head. She always gets me with that "Man of the House" crap. I'm the Man of the House when it comes to going downstairs defenseless to get my head chopped off by Chuckie, but on most other Man of the House issues that arise under our roof my wife is beating her chest and burning her bra at every turn.

So as always I convince my body to move from beneath the sheets. I tiptoe down the stairs and walk around to find...nothing. But what would happen if I actually did find something? What if, God forbid, a monster attacked or a shot rang out, then what? Will my family all huddle in a closet and wait to meet their maker? Will they hide in the attic? Because it's not like the wife is right behind me with a meat cleaver backing me up, or down the hall on alert in front of the kids' rooms. She just lays there in the dark waiting to see if I return to bed. What makes more sense is for all of us to huddle by the alarm control panel in our room, behind the locked door and hit the panic button connected to the police station. But that's just me.

As always, I crawl back under the sheets and she asks what made the sound. Most times I tell her it's the icemaker when I know that it is. And other times when I don't know what knock or bump she heard in the night I still tell her it's the icemaker.

I don't plan on ever owning a gun, but maybe I should pick up a nice, solid Louisville Slugger to keep in my closet. That way I won't feel like I'm being ripped from sleep to be a human sacrifice because I'm the Man of The House.


E.Payne is the author of Investing In An Emotional Letdown and I Didn't Invented Sex. For the past 3 years he has posted 600+ articles about fatherhood, marriage and everything in between here at Makes Me Wanna Holler.com. To learn more, click here.