The ‘syndrome’ & things that go BUMP in the night

I ‘camp’ out (pun intended) in an easy chair that sits next to a large bank of windows. At the crack of dawn, they glare a bit with the rising sun, but usually by then, Midnight zombies like myself have found a pillow to drool on. During the summer months in the Midwest it can get fairly warm and humid even in the evening. Of course the creatures of the night and bugs don’t mind, and in fact some increase their flying sorties ten-fold once the sun goes down and the lights come up inside the house.

This creates an irritating distraction for me in my normally relaxing perch. Those dumb flying insects repeatedly will circle around and dive for the light radiating from my window and ram their buggy heads into the glass. Even if these bug dive bombers had my brain, you would think that after a couple of times of hitting that brick-hard glass, they would be deterred from further noggin-knockin’. But NO, those ‘insane-sects’ would make lousy burglars, because they don’t even bother trying a different window, they simply regroup and fly back in for another brain bash with the exact same PANE.

It probably would not surprise you that I have also created yet another window bumping pest – the raccoons. Everyone thought it was cute at first when they would come up to the sliding door with their masky beady eyes and gently tap the glass for a tasty table scrap. Who am I to deny such polite and adorable creatures, the dental and dietary benefits of commercial cat food? Well that was fine at first. But unlike toothless, hard-luck and tacky street-people who hawk oranges or clean windshields for hand-outs, the raccoons rarely offer me much more than a toothy grin. At least they smell better and are always impeccably dressed in fur.

At times I have resorted to turning off the lights and writing in the dark. I have no problem keyboarding the standard alphabet, but all those weird characters, numbers, hypens, and apostrophes are starting to make Braile ‘LOOK’ good now. I try to mask the blue glow of the computer screen but clearly I need a ‘Windowless office’, or at least insects and animals who better understand Linux, and my need for peace and quiet.

Now if these are not reasons enough for ‘noise-cancelling headphones’ for Christmas, then Santa must already be deaf (or asleep in the other room). Sadly by the end of the year it won’t matter anyway, because around here, even the insects head South for the Winter. I claim they’re the dumb ones, yet who is stuck shoveling snow and scraping ice, in a frigid ‘Kool Pop’-cave for half the year? Did you just hear that crunching sound and those loud, hollow bumps? Don’t worry, I’m sure the insect and animal night-stalkers are just fine and haven’t breached our perimeter yet. Actually, that is the sweet sound of ‘Munchie-hausens’ relief as I blissfully bludgeon my head against a wall and eat Fritos long into the night.