BLOG: Who Is the Intruder and Can I Defend Myself?
July 27, 2012 
22 Comments
It’s very early morning. I roll to my side opposite of the window to escape the sun coming up over the horizon. My body is craving more sleep. I start to doze off again when I hear a loud noise. I tell myself it must be my husband getting ready for work.
My eyes spring open! My husband isn’t home. He is away on business. What could’ve made that noise?!
I try to calm myself by picturing something falling from the shelf in a closet where someone was rushing to put it away. A few minutes go by and I don’t hear the noise. I chalk it up to a mystery noise and pull the sheet over my head.
Wait! There it is again and it’s louder. I can clearly tell it is coming from the main level of our home. I look at the clock and see it is 5:45AM. I try to tell myself that home invasions happen in the middle of the night. No one would try to break in when a car could be passing by to go to work. Or would they?!
I hear it again and I can tell it is coming from the back of our house. No one would see a burglar in our back yard. I tip toe out of my bed and step on our dog. She looks up at me and rolls back over. The dog that barks when a butterfly flies by our house is sleeping. What is going on?!
The noise continues and it gets louder. It is definitely something or someone banging on our glass French doors or one of our windows. I can’t find my glasses. I don’t have time to put contacts in. I do find our long wooden back massager that rolls over your skin. This could definitely be used in defense if needed. I sneak down the stairs in stealth mode.
The banging is getting louder. I know I am getting closer to the spot. My heart is racing. Why don’t I call someone?! 911 even?!
I turn at the bottom of the stairs and look to the back of our home. Yes! There is something dark at the bay window in the dining nook of our kitchen. Without my glasses it is hard to make out. It would have to be someone at least six feet tall to reach up to that window. Okay, maybe this back massager isn’t going to be enough.
That’s when I see a flash of red come at the window and then bang! Whatever was hitting the window was red. I tell myself that I can do this. I can get closer. I move slowly towards the window, my hands still shaky, my heart still racing and my eyes squinting.
As I get to the end of the hall way, I see the offender even through blurry eyes. I had to rub them a bit to be sure but there at my window, as tall as two window panes, was the largest woodpecker I had ever seen. A WOODPECKER!!
I guess my back massager could’ve taken him out after all!
Have you ever had a scare like mine where thankfully it ended up being harmless?
I would totally freak out. Thank goodness it was just a woodpecker. You are so brave!
The wave of relief that washed over me was incredible. It probably took a good hour to calm down. Then all I could do was laugh!
I would have reacted the same way. It’s really unnerving when you are woken up by a noise. My dog snoring caused me to jump out of bed the other night cause it sounded like voices, lol.
Talking about dogs snorting…I think our dog needs to be put on a sleep study. She is the main reason I don’t sleep well and she refuses to sleep anywhere but on the floor by my side of the bed.
Oh, that’s too funny. But I would have been terrified too, heart beating in my chest, glammy hands and all. We’ve had intruders on our back deck quite a few times… I remember the big raccoon that looked drunk. Scared me half to death!!!
Raccoons scare me. They already fit the profile of a bandit with those little masked faces. We had a rabid one in our yard one day and my husband had to catch it using a recycling bin.
Whenever I am in the house alone i hear EVERY SINGLE NOISE.
I am a light sleeper and can pick up on a lot of noises too. This one was just WAY out of the ordinary. Thank goodness it was just a cartoon character brought to life.
Oh my gosh, I just had a bird incident last week. Our sliding door was wide open and a bird just flew right in. The kids and I started freaking out, it was just so weird and the bird was totally disoriented. I remember reading a story about this same thing so I told the girls to turn off the lights and turn on the patio lights and just like that he flew right out.
The funny thing is I kept covering my head like the bird was going to attack me. I overreacted somewhat
I am totally putting that to memory! With all of the wildlife around our house it will probably happen to us sooner rather than later.
I had a friend that had a bird get in her car. It went to the bathroom everywhere it could.
After 11 years in our house, I am still oftentimes outright scared when I’m here alone or it’s just the kids and me. We have a bird I can’t name who is trying to get into our bedroom window. What makes it worse is we watched an episode of Infested where the birds were doing that and it meant they were trying to get to some insect they like WHAT THE HELL Does that mean we have insects in the house? And now I have the heebie jeebies. Again.
Our heads go to some crazy places when we hear noises, don’t they?! I would’ve gone right to thinking we were infested as well. Meanwhile, they were probably just setting up a nest on the side of your house out of the elements.
I always freak myself out when I’m home alone and our apartment isn’t that big! Ever since I was little, I would imagine monsters lurking somewhere and that’s just transformed into images of burglars and invaders as I’ve gotten older. I’m glad it was just a woodpecker!
When I was little (okay, and sometimes still as an adult) I would run up the stairs from the basement at lightning speed because I was sure that a monster was going to grab my ankles as I went up.
That would be terrifying to wake to that early in the morning!!!! That said- I remember that sound well. In my parents’ home we had a woodpecker that would peck on the wall right above my bed. I won’t tell you how my father took care of that.
The woodpecker ended up freaking out when he saw me. He ended up moving to our front yard where we had an old tree stump that was breaking down and hung out all day. He didn’t even move when our dog went outside. I’m certain that woodpecker could’ve carried her away (possibly me too…it was huge!).
Oh, I have so been there! I hate when my husband works nights b/c I am always wondering how I would defend myself and the kids should someone get in without waking our snoring dog.
And yes, I think your back massager would have taken him out!
Well, if I couldn’t have knocked it out maybe I could have relaxed it enough with a back rub that it would’ve fallen alseep.
Oh man, woodpeckers are such a pain. We had one knock on our house near our bedroom. I hate them.
I knew they were loud banging against a tree but against the window framing…it was LOUD!! The glass was vibrating.
Gah! Oh my word, I’m glad it was only a woodpecker. Nature is lovely and all that, but….STUPID BIRD!
Great story, Kristen.