Home Security called twice at 3:57 in the morning to tell me the alarm had been tripped.

I assume that’s what they wanted. I didn’t pick up the phone. Because

A) The alarm is on an empty haunted house in another state.

B) Even if it wasn’t, my distaste for picking up the phone now extends to the point I might not pick up even if the alarm was for my own house and an ax-wielding maniac was creeping up the stairs.

C) My husband set up the alarm thing with the company, and he’s out of town. The alarm was MONEY, and I didn’t want to mess stuff up by either saying, “Yeah send police, it’s not a false alarm,” or “No, I’m fine and snuggled in my bed, whatever.” Like, what if there’s a fee for one of those options, or someone got hurt over there whilst breaking in, and god forbid if one of those choices involves them calling back and me having to talk on the phone again.

Hence me staring at the caller ID and cursing everyone in existence but absolutely refusing to pick up the phone and do it to their faces.

Hi, I like to make my own problems.

Anyway, I went back to bed and tried to pep-talk myself that of all the 4AM calls I could get, this was the best outcome.

With a husband out of town and children at faraway school and the last call at 4AM being about my father’s death, this was really a great call PRAISE THE CALLER AND THE CALLER ID WHICH ALLOWED ME TO SCREEN THE CALLS, plural, because there were two, back to back. Then they finally gave up and left a message, or assumed I needed help over at that other house.

While trying to get back to sleep, here’s what I thought about instead of sleeping:

What if there was some catastrophic event, and my body was mummified in this bed. Like, I dunno: Pompeii, or a mudslide or something.

Fast forward a thousand years, and whatever passes for humans dig me up. They’d probably have tons of questions. Like why is my pillow made of bamboo shavings when bamboo is not native to my location? And was I really that shape, or did time waste away my thermal underwear into sad and dumpy bulges? No way to know!

They’d put me in X-ray machines and see the bolts in my jaw, and CAT-scan me and stuff, but the thing reserved for the most joy would be some graduate student who would maybe throw me in the microwave for 30 seconds to loosen me up and then pry open my mouth and see not only a bite guard but also a retainer. WHAT THE FUCK DID SHE HAVE THOSE THINGS FOR? Was she a witch and they crammed her mouth full of plastic to keep her from enchanting her wardens?! Was it some kind of sex thing?!

NGL, kinda excited that the grad student will probably get their Ph.D. for finding it, and they’ll get to write a dissertation on my weird oral plastic things.

Oh hey, I went out and bought some cannabis gummies, which I have never done before. Any of you wanna see them? I had to swipe my ID which means I’ll probably never get a federal job now, but I’m 47 what the fuck, was I gonna follow my dreams and work for the feds when Mulder is clearly already retired and Hannibal Lecter escaped? NO.