Faithful Warrior Goes on the Offensive

I was sound asleep. Suddenly....

"Mom! Mom! It’s on the counter with red eyes and it’s chomping stuff and it’s looking right at me! Mom!"

My groggy brain tried to figure out what was going on. It was too dark in my room to see anything, plus I wasn’t wearing my glasses, but I recognized the voice as CJ, my self-proclaimed "Faithful Warrior."

"CJ? What?" was my sleepy reply.

"Mom! Seriously, Mom! It’s on the counter!" CJ is practically hopping up and down now. I could hear the panic in his voice.

"CJ....calm down. What are you talking about?" I was starting to wake up just a little bit now. At least I knew I was awake at this point.

"Mooooommmm! That thing is over there. It’s moving around. It looked RIGHT at me!"

"CJ, there’s nothing there." We have had issues like this in the past. CJ hears the wind blowing leaves outside his window and thinks someone is trying to climb in. Or he hears the cat downstairs and thinks someone has broken into the windows... The cat! (I think.) That must be what he saw.

"CJ...you probably just saw Baxter. Go back to bed, Sweetie."

"No, Mom! It’s NOT Baxter! It was chomping on something!"

"Sweetie...he was probably just eating his food."

"I don’t think so....I’ll go check." CJ very softly tiptoes out of my bedroom. I lay my head back on my pillow and start to doze off into oblivion once again.....

Suddenly....

"Mom! It was NOT Baxter! Baxter is sitting on the chair looking out the window and it’s STILL there!"

Yawning, I reach for my glasses. "CJ," I say, "everything is fine. The house is safe. The doors are locked. Nobody can get in."

"Mom! It’s there! It really is! It’s got these red eyes and it’s moving it’s head around, and it’s got a body like......like a human body! It’s sitting on the counter in there where we have the stools. It’s chomping, Mom! Seriously, Mom!"

*sigh*

"Okay.....I’ll check."

At this point, my big, strong husband finally wakes up enough to pull his CPAP machine from his face.

"What?" Mike says. Yeah....I already did that part.

"Go back to sleep, honey. CJ is having one of those nights again. He thinks there’s a monster/human thing on the counter chomping on stuff."

Groggily, Mike said, "Just tell him to climb up in bed here and go to sleep."

"Well, I may have to, but let me figure out what he’s talking about first so he’s not scared." I climb out of bed and follow CJ to the door.

When I walked into the hallway, I can barely make out the shape of CJ standing at the top of the stairs. His body is hidden behind the wall and just his head is peeking around the corner.

"Mom!" he whispers in a panic, "It’s still there! Look!"

I walk over to the top of the stairs expecting to see the light from my iPod station that I left on or something similar. Instead, I am greeted by what appears to be five red eyes in a circular pattern moving around on the dining room counter. I was mystified. Or stupefied.

My intelligent, assuring response to CJ’s panic was one word: "Huh."

CJ looked at me and whispered, "I’m scared."

By this time, common sense had returned. I didn’t know what was making those moving lights on the counter, but I knew it wasn’t a human/monster hybrid. I looked around. Sure enough, there was Baxter sitting on the chair looking out the window.

I turned to CJ and said, "Okay, buddy...I’m going to go see what it is."

"No, Mom! It’ll get you! Can’t you hear it chomping?"

I listened. I was rather confounded by the noise that I heard. I actually did sound a bit like....well....chomping.

"CJ, I don’t know what it is, but I’m SURE it’s not a monster. I’m going to go check."

"Well, I’m going to go get my weapons!" CJ darted for his room before I could stop him.

I walked very cautiously down the stairs. What the heck is that thing?!? I can definitely see how this was freaking out my little Faithful Warrior. I briefly thought about my big Faithful Warrior still asleep with his CPAP machine firmly attached to his face. Isn’t this kind of stuff supposed to be the man’s job?

I tiptoed down the stairs. CJ came to the top of the stairs with his weapon in hand: a plastic sword. Yep...that’ll take care of any human/monster hybrid out there! As long as it’s allergic to plastic....

After what seemed like an eternity, I finally made it down the stairs far enough to reach the light switch to the dining room. Staring at those red eyes....five of them, mind you.....that kept looking up at me, then would turn and look somewhere else, then turn back at me, I flipped the switch.
CJ, the Faithful Warrior, was the first to react. "Huh."

I think I said that earlier.

There, sitting on the counter, was the mylar balloon that my big Faithful Warrior had bought for me a while back as a "Just Because" gift. It was shaped like a heart and says "I love you" on it. Somehow the red shiny ballon was picking up the reflection of the light streaming in the slightly open window. The cold breeze that was blowing in moved the balloon around in such a way that made it appear like the red "eyes" were moving.

Standing there, I realized two things: One, it was VERY cold downstairs thanks to the window that I had forgotten to close earlier. Two, CJ was no longer with me.

"CJ? Where’d you go?" CJ came back to the top of the stairs.

"What Mom?" he said with a yawn.

"CJ, did you see what it is?"

"Yep. It’s a balloon." He laughed. The panic in his voice was gone. "Okay, I’m going back to bed now. Love you, Mom."

"Love you too, CJ."

"Night." CJ hopped off to bed.

I followed him, tucked him in and said, "Thanks for watching out for us, Faithful Warrior."

Sleepily, he replied, "No problem. Good thing I had my weapon."

"Yep. Good thing." I’m pretty sure he was asleep by the time I left his room.

I went back to the bedroom, laughing. Mike had finally gotten out of bed and was returning from the bathroom. If there had been a human/monster hybrid, I’m sure it would have waited patiently for him to return from the bathroom before trying to "chomp" me.

Geez....with warriors like these.....who needs human/monster hybrids?