Playing Catch Up: 8

September 24, 2010

A few weeks ago, I experienced terror in a way that I haven't since I was a kid first playing Nightmare.  Anyone remember that board game?  One of the first interactive games where you popped a video in your VCR (anyone remember VCRs?) which consisted of a scary gatekeeper-vampire-werewolf-type person who led you through the game and made you say and do certain things to win.  I DID NOT WANT TO PLAY.  Why? Because I thought the scary person on the other side of the screen could SEE ME.  That if I didn't do what he said he would somehow...punish me.  By creeping into my room at night and showing me the maggots under his hood? I don't know.  But it terrified me.

But I digress, as usual.  The incident in question from a few weeks ago is WAY scarier, and only because I am old now and can't take that kind of shock to my heart.  I thought I was going to die from the panic.  

Dave and I were fast asleep.  It was three in the morning and not a creature was stirring.  I was yanked out of a dead sleep, which, if you have never been woken up in that way, you are lucky.  It's no good.  It leaves you feeling weird, and no one's heart should beat that fast.   I laid there trying to figure out what it was that woke me up so horribly when I heard it:  piano music coming from somewhere close.  At three in the morning.  Now, keep in mind that I was still slightly asleep and thought that my mind was playing tricks on me.  But then it continued, and as my brain woke up a little bit more, I realized that there was indeed a piano playing.  At first I thought someone was listening to music somewhere.  Why in God's name they would be playing it that loudly at that time of the morning is beyond me, but I do live in a crackhead area.  Who knows what a person who is agitated and paranoid will do in the middle of the night, right?

But then I realized it did not sound like music coming from a radio, but more like PLAYING.  Someone playing the piano.  I thought to myself "Ok neighbour, I get that you like to play the piano, but REALLY?" before my brain kicked in again and reminded me that my neighbours have school age children so it most likely wasn't them.  And then, the realization:  THE PIANO PLAYING WAS COMING FROM INSIDE MY HOUSE.  Once I figured this out, it was like my brain met with the rest of my body.  A huge WHOOSH of realization that woke me up completely.  As in, my body is standing at attention: all 1,300,000 nerve endings are NOT at ease.

Someone was playing the piano downstairs.  Never mind thoughts of ghostly beings in flowing, white, old-fashioned dress; enter serial killer stage left.  The kind of serial killer who's calling card was to play a person's piano before slashing their throat.  My entire body froze. My eyes tried to see through the floor, in order to try and understand what was going on below.  I gently and as quietly as I could, tried to wake up Dave.  This only happened when I squeezed his side in a pincher grip, all the while breathing "DAVE!" out of the corner of my mouth. He finally woke up.  I whisper-breathed, "Someone is in our house, playing the piano".

Now usually it takes Dave a good long 30 minutes to pull himself out of bed in the mornings.  This time? He was up and running in a matter of SECONDS.  He ran down the stairs.  Hmm...not my first choice in handling the situation.  I mean, who RUNS towards their death?  Apparently Dave does.  I heard the music go away.  He came back up the stairs to tell me that one of our cats had pushed the self-playing button on his piano.  PIANOS HAVE THOSE?  Oh my goodness, I thought we were DEAD when it was the freaking cat all along.

Moral of the story: turn off your piano before you go to sleep at night.  And any other thing that plays music or makes a sound.  Because when your cat has a vendetta towards you, they know just how to take you out.