Home invaders

It was 2:am and I was sleeping soundly. A noise from the kitchen startled me. I sat up and listened, and heard items falling on the floor. What the heck is going on?

My wife says it is probably just one of the cats. I run through the list of things in the kitchen that had been left out. I could think of nothing that would interest a cat. Besides, Molly, the cat most likely to cause such a disturbance was purring at my feet.

Burglars! I run through the list of things a burglar might be looking for that would cause such a ruckus. Again, there really wasn’t anything I could imagine they would want. Not in the kitchen anyway. So again…What the HECK is going on?

With only one way to find out, I get out of bed and decide to confront the intruder. I considered grabbing my wife’s handgun from the bookshelf. Pointless really, because my 12 gauge shotgun was up against the wall near the coat hook where I had left it after considering a trip to the woods for some grouse the other day before I realized just how windy it was.

No sense trying to sneak. Might as well confront this intrusion into my home head on. I step into the hall and meet my intruder. Ozzy… one of my goats. He is standing on his hind legs in front of my induction cooker sniffing my egg pan. As he gets down various containers of seasonings, and a jar of peanut butter clatter to the floor. Behind him, is sweet innocent Elsa trying to reach my bananas hanging on a hook above the center island.

Elsa had long since breached my “Goat Proof Fence“, and pretty much roams the yard as she pleases.  Ozzy had previously been too goofy to figure out how to get out. Apparently, that had changed.  Now here they were.  At 2:am.  In my kitchen.

The last person through the door must have neglected to make sure it was latched. I know the guy. Typically he would NEVER let this sort of thing happen!  ‘Captain Conscientious’ is how he is known…Far and wide.

“Hey, Fatboy! What are you doing up??? Can I get you anything?” asks Ozzy.

“I was just about to jump up on this counter top and grab some of these ‘nanners! Want one?” asks sweet innocent Elsa? Her snow white pelt dazzling in the light from the full moon that is streaming through the kitchen window.

“GOATS!” I yell. By now, I am sure my terrified wife is in the bedroom with her handgun ready. There to assist me when the Evil Clown fires up his chainsaw, or the brain hungry zombies smell my cranial abundance and attempt to swarm!

From the bedroom, I hear my loving wife stirred from sleep, “Goats? Well, what are they doing in here?”

“Making peanut butter and banana sandwiches from what I can tell…want one?”

Ozzy chimes in, “We’ve got raspberry jelly if you prefer?”

Somewhere in the distance a rooster crows…

Doug Alley

About Doug Alley

I grew up in Bath, Maine in an upper lower class family with 3 step sisters, a step brother, and a little sister. After high school I spent 3 years serving in the USAF at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage AK. I've competed in, and won, demolition derbies. I've competed in, and never won, stock car races. I am the 47-year-old father of an 11-year-old boy who is pretty sure he is smarter than I ever was. We live on a little less than an acre of land in a 1973 mobile home in Stetson with my wife Jen, some cats, a few chickens, and rabbits, and a couple of goats. I hunt, fish, camp out, dabble in photography, gardening, and I cook in variable degrees of near success.