I Scare Nice People

I am laughing as I type this.

My husband is reading over my shoulder, telling me I should call today's post, "Things I Like To Do." Or "Things He'd Like To Forget."

I think "I Scare Nice People" -- best possible title ever.

Because anyone who has been reading me for awhile knows-- and we've been over this before: not that there is any one thing wrong with me, just several little things....nothing enough to be called a red flag. Just a few light pink flagettes here and there.

I like to scare nice people. I like to scare the nicest people of all, like my husband.

It's something I can't help....to turn him into a dancing bug-eyed fool, few things bring me more joy.

Before anyone jumps on me about his age! his heart! what will the children do?? I can promise you that I know his family history and follow his most recent physical exams, checking that BP, heart rate, cardiac risk factors, are all well within normal bounce back from scared s***less fright range.

The most recent exhilarating episode fell right into my lap, perfectly timed, while we were home on a weekend night watching BatMan Begins.

In this movie, there is a heart pounding 20 second segment where the breathtaking Cillian Murphy, playing the mentally unstable Scarecrow, drives an asylum patient into madness.

He could be a Victoria's Secret angel (or mine)

It is cinematography wonder; filmed in broken, twitchy frames showing close ups of an unevenly stitched burlap sacked head. It is the unexpected beauty of Cillian Murphy inside that bag, with him being so sadistic mastermind certifiable, that makes this scene just the horror that it is.

So much scarier in a dark living room at 11 PM

It took all of half a second for me to know just what I'd be doing before the film was over.

I excused myself to go to the bathroom and left my husband sitting in the dark--watching the horror of the psychoness of Scarecrow unfold.

Quietly, I went upstairs instead. Once on the second floor, I pulled a pillowcase and scarf out of the bedroom closet and tiptoed back down to the bottom of the stairs, just ten feet from where my husband was watching Scarecrow drive some poor hanging on to sanity by his fingernails asylum patient to the edge of his psychological cliff. I sat on the bottom step and placed the pillowcase over my head, tying the scarf loosely around my neck. 

I slipped my shoe off, and threw it, hard, against the staircase wall.

And then I waited.

I knew my husband would come check on the noise. I had to press my lips hard to keep from laughing in delirious anticipation.

When I heard him call my name, I just about yelped out in glee.

At the sound of him getting up from the sofa, I had to bite my thumb to keep myself quiet.

The sound of his footsteps coming in my direction had me holding my breath and chewing the inside of my cheek.

HE WAS COMING.

I tucked myself into the corner of the stair, crouched into the very wedge, pillowcase over my head, scarf securely around my neck, excited beyond words. He was just steps away now. It was dark, he took one step up and stumbled into me.

I heard the "what the..?" and then....THEN, I felt his tentative hand reach out and perfectly land on my clothed head.

Sweet lord make it stop!!

OH! The long awaited prize of his yell.

How I live for that first yell when things are moving too fast for his brain to understand.

Not able to hold back my laughter, I pulled off the pillowcase, blessedly in time to see him blinking faster than a strobe light and dancing in place as he tried to figure out what was going on.

He mumbled something about one of these days this will all take its toll.

In my defense, he was George Clooney grey when I met him.

Honest.
________________________________