Sneaking in the house

It was one of those nights. Everyone has had them. You know, the kind of night where you were supposed to be home by 9pm and it’s already 12am, but you got caught up in the moment with your friends—perhaps doing something that you weren’t supposed to—and lost track of time? You pull up to your house and all the lights are off so you tiptoe up to the front door. Whether or not it is locked makes no difference because when you start to open that door, it makes the loudest, most obnoxious noise that any door could make; it sounds like a howler monkey with a sore throat has been taking singing lessons. You think to yourself “If I open it more slowly, there will be less noise”, so you sit there at the front door inching it forward over the next 5 minutes. Excruciatingly painful.

At this point, some parents would suddenly flip the lights on, wretch open the door, and stare you down, but not my mother. I would make it past the howler monkey door, across the squeaky floor, and to the loudest stairs on the west coast before I would hear a little cough. It wasn’t loud or intrusive; it was just enough to make me freeze in my tracks, my hair stand on end, and send a chill through my body. It was always on the third step too. Always. Now I’m pretty sure that my mom was never a government agent, but she had to have been getting her supply of night-vision goggles from somewhere because she always caught me right there without fail.

Well, that cough would sound and I would knew I was in deep trouble, so I would put on my best puppy dog face and pretend like the most innocent child in the world, even if I had just been out covering people’s houses in toilet paper. I would turn slowly around and a verbal reprimand would follow which would make Satan feel guilty for his sins.

This night was like those nights, but it was different. Why? I am a grown man, with kids, sneaking into my own house at 12am, hoping that my dear wife is sleeping. I haven’t been out doing anything that I shouldn’t have; the date just slipped my mind until about 5 minutes ago. Yea, it’s our anniversary and I completely forgot about it. I coast down the last half block of the street, so there is no sound of a car pulling into the driveway. I tiptoe up the walkway to the front of the house and open up the howler monkey door. Every house has one of these things, I swear.

They say that a man marries a woman who is most like his mother. I never really tried to compare my wife and my mother, but after tonight, I know that this is the truth. I make it across the tile floor to the stairs, and thought I was home free. Obviously, I wasn’t. I knew she was mad when, on the third step, I heard the subtle cough. Uhoh, I guess I’d start putting on my puppy dog face.