Our basement steps are designed in such a way that you generally have to go down one step in order to reach the light switch. I was just taking a load of laundry to the basement and as I was stepping down the first step, in the pitch dark, I suddenly realized that I had no idea if the step was even there! I could plunge to the floor of the basement and die! AIIEE!
And then, of course, my foot hit the step.
I think I win the doofus of the day award for that.
My heart is still pounding though. I think I need a vacation.
Yeah, but at least you apparently kept your mouth shut.
So, it’s the same with the light in our garage, but there are only two steps. I was carrying some paper for recycling out with both hands, with only socks on, and the light wasn’t on. We’d had some mice in there recently. As I go down the first step, I hear a shuffling noise six feet in front of me. Then, a fraction of a second later, the same shuffling noise is just below me on the lower step. I yelled out loudly AAAHHHH-ahhhhh-ahhhhhhhh, as I knew it would get my feet before I could step up, and it sounded like it had to be much bigger than a mouse to move that fast, possibly even a person.
I jumped the hell back and turned on the light (you can get it if you lean over), expecting to see a dog, large rat, fox, deer (you never know) or a burglar. You know how when you drop a piece of paper, it can either go straight down or it can sail for some distance? Well, I had dropped two pieces of paper, and one landed far away follwed by the other right by my feet, in quick succession. That’s all it was, two pieces of paper on the floor.
I had a terrible experience the night I went to an amusement park with a couple of friends to celebrate by 16th birthday. Oh, we had great fun at the park, but it was late that night that things went wrong.
You remember being a teen, right? I was up for 20 hours, we went on every ride at least once… by the time I got home all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, but I made the superhuman effort to change out of my clothes and into PJs first. The last thing on the list was to turn off the ceiling fan since it was cool out.
Then I went blind.
It was terrible! One second I could see fine, and the next everything went black. I tried to stay calm, but sudden blindness is a big deal, so my mind began to run though what might have happened - had turning off the fan somehow electrocuted me? if so, shouldn’t I’ve felt a jolt that was bad enough to cause damage to my eyes? - and how I was going to cope.
And then… and then I realized something. I could hear a noise. A familiar noise. One that sounded very like the fan. So I groped blindly for the cord and -
regained my sight. Idiot.
So, not knowing if the step was there? That’s nothing next to mixing up the cords on a ceiling fan and truly believing you’ve gone blind when you just turned off the light by accident.
