Things That go Boom in the Night

According to the bedside clock radio it was about 2 am. I am not sure what woke me up, but I soon became aware of a roaring noise in the distance. We are used to hearing the sounds of the nearby ocean, but this sounded different. I did what any brave guy would do - I woke up my wife.

"Can you hear that ?" I asked.
"What is it ?", she replied.
"I thought it was your stomach growling", I explained.

The room was soon lit up by a succession of lightning flashes. The distant rumbling resolved into loud peals of thunder. At times like this my first worry is hailstones. Although Maggie's car was safely parked in the carport, mine was parked in the driveway and would be a sitting duck in the event of a hailstorm.

As the noise grew progressively louder I ran to the next bedroom and grabbed the doona off the bed. My thought was that, if hail started falling, I would throw it over the car and hope that it would protect the panels. Maggie was more concerned about the doona getting wet, than in what might happen to my car.

She had a brainwave.

"The guy next door is away" she said. "Why don't you park in his carport".

Sometimes she does have some sensible suggestions after all. I threw on some clothes and rapidly moved the car to the neighbour's carport. I returned to bed.

"But what if he comes home ?" she asked.
"He won't come home in the middle of the night", I replied
"He might", she added

The storm raged, the house was shaken by more thunder and teeming rain.
"I think you had better move it back", she suggested.
"You have got to be kidding".
"He might have a bad temper", she added.

I lay in bed with thoughts of us both being murdered by a disgruntled man who came home in the middle of a storm to find his carport occupied. The storm raged unabated. I tried to sleep, but it was too late now. The seeds of doubt had already been sown.

Somehow we did drift back into an unsettled sleep. The storm finally passed over and the sun rose to reveal a very damp yard. As soon as first light Maggie went and retrieved my car. We would not be murdered in our beds after all.

With the car back in our own drive we returned to bed and, by some miracle, managed to sleep in until almost 8 am. The neighbour is still away.Read more