The Minnesota Farm Woman

Halloween is just around the corner, and I am kind of a wimp when it comes to scary stuff. That is why I stopped watching my favorite TV channel a couple of weeks before staying at our daughter’s house. You know the show:  Machete-wielding neighbors, swamp murderers, and deranged lunatics.  I am dogsitting her two giant lovable yellow labs who think they are lap dogs and have overactive salivary glands. They are lovable unless you are a stranger, so I wasn’t really worried about staying alone,  but stopped the scary TV just in case. When staying in somebody else’s home, there are things to be learned as you settle in, and this is no exception. The light switches are the worst. It is dark every morning when I leave, and I stumble my way through the house,  turning off lights as I go and locking “the boys” in the breezeway with plenty of water and food. The first afternoon I arrived back to my temporary home, I discovered that I had inadvertantly left the hall and stairway lights on. Shaking my head and muttering to myself about getting forgetful, I turned them off. The next day, I couldn’t find the bottle of very expensive hazelnut liquid stevia drops, which are a must for my morning coffee. Looking high and low, in drawers and cupboards, and even in my suitcase, they were nowhere to be found. I gave up looking and purchased another  bottle, and it hadn’t gotten any cheaper.  Unlocking the door and letting the dogs out for a run in the back yard,  I noticed that the light for the hallway and basement was on again. This time it was creepy, as I was certain that I had shut it off before I left. I took the dogs with me as I searched every nook and cranny of that house, looking for machete-wielding neighbors, swamp murderers, and/or deranged lunatics. I made sure all the windows were in the locked position. I wasn’t really afraid, as I was certain my charges would tear an intruder limb from limb, or at least slobber him to death. I slept well, despite the loud snoring from one of the dogs…or perhaps it was the machete-wielding neighbor sleeping on the couch. I left the house again the next morning in the dark, closing the door and feeling along the wall for the light switch and noting that one of the switches in the breezeway needed to be fixed, as nothing happened with I flipped it on and off. When I returned that afternoon,  the lights were on once again. What the heck, was the house haunted? Were the lights on a timer that they didn’t think to mention? As I reached for the light switch to turn the breezeway light off, I accidently flipped the one that wasn’t working, and this time, the kitchen door was open, and I noticed that the “nonworking” switch actually turned on the hall and stairway lights. It wasn’t a swamp murderer after all. Besides, the house is nowhere near a swamp. In fact, I doubt that the neighbors carry machetes, but from the looks of all the Halloween decorations up and down the street, there will be plenty of ghosts and goblins running around in a few days. Oh, do you remember the bottle of  very expensive hazelnut liquid stevia drops? I found it in the refrigerator. Probably right where the deranged lunatic put it.