On Our Way To Crazy

A couple of weeks ago, there was a really disturbing story on the news. Essentially, two people were murdered in an apartment not terribly far from us, and it was so bad that the cops couldn’t even tell what had happened. They had no leads on who had done it, so as far as they knew that person was out and about in the area.

A few nights later, I woke up in the middle of the night. We sleep with our window cracked, and it was a windy night, so the blinds were making noise. In my half-awake state, I became convinced that the person who had committed those murders was in our house. I could hear him moving around, possibly even coming up the stairs.

Did I call the police? No. Did I wake Aaron up? No. My mind immediately went to the self defense class I took in the spring. In that class, we learned how to defend ourselves if someone attacks us and gets us on the ground. We practiced how to get them off of us if they got us down on our backs and if they got us down on our stomachs.

Still half asleep, I considered this. Which method was I better at? If you’re lying on your back, you’re to use your legs to knock them forward toward you, then attack the face: a poke in the eyes, fingers to the throat, a punch in the nose. Once they’re disoriented, you roll them off. If you’re on your stomach, you rock side to side until they lose their balance, push them off and kick them in an unfortunate place. When we were practicing these methods, I was much more efficient at getting people off my back.

So. Murderer in the house. Sleeping husband and dog. He’s coming to get me. What do I do?

Roll over on my stomach and go back to sleep. That way, once he gets into the bedroom and attacks me, I’ll be in the best possible position to get myself out of it.

Of course, the noise I heard was just the wind and no one attacked me that night. Lucky for them, too, because I was ready.