The Perks of Insomnia

Before I start, no, I'm not in an insomnia cycle again, for those of you that worry. Actually quite the opposite, I can't seem to get enough sleep. I think I totally wore myself out throughout the month of September and I'm still trying to catch up.

I need to preface this by telling you what happened in my little neighborhood yesterday. I'm starting to think maybe it was just a big hallucination because I can't seem to find anything about it in the local news! However, while cruising my NBC affiliate site I did come up with a jewel of an eyewitness account that I need to share...

Last week a family was robbed at gunpoint at home.

Paul Kelley who lives in the home said he and his family thought what was happening was a joke at first.

"This guy just run in here with a gun. He bounced around like a darn ninja or something," Kelley told WYFF News 4's Ron Reynolds.

Too many of those darned ninjas in the Upstate of South Carolina apparently. Yesterday I got home and was going to head right back out to get the dogs some food before playdate at 6pm. As I went about my routine letting the dogs out, I noticed that there was a helicopter overhead...not a strange occurance at all, since I live in between two large hospitals that both have helicopters AND in the flight path of the Greenville Municipal Airport.

But the helicopters didn't seem to be leaving my neighborhood. In fact, I saw it make a complete circle twice at least. Probably the news helicopter, I thought, and went back inside. As I was getting ready to go to the store, I noticed a police car with its lights on going down my street very slowly. Not something that happens every day. I stepped outside and saw the helicopter again, closer this time, and noticed that it was a police helicopter. Then I noticed the police cars parked at either end of my block, lights on...definitely not something that happens every day.

A neighbor and I spoke briefly (found out he's originally from Atlanta, small world!) and he then found out from the cop that there had been an armed robbery closeby. The suspect(s) had fled up Bleckley Avenue, one street over from me AND where I used to live! We were asked to go back inside and lock our doors.

Okay, that situation I think led to the dream I had last night.

I dreamed that I lived in a two story house and that I knew somehow that there were criminals on the loose in my neighborhood. I saw one man run through my yard, carefully evading the police cars by hiding behind my trees. I yelled out my window to the cops that he was there and they got him. Interestingly enough, he was wearing a black and white striped prison uniform like the chain gangs in Alabama wear...but I digress.

Remember I said criminalS, as in more than one? Well, after that first one was caught, I apparently went to check my doors and found that my kitchen door wasn't locked. As I tried to lock it, the knob turned and the other fugitive pushed his way into my house. In my dream I could feel his hands on my neck and the coldness of the gun against my face! Ugh. I remember crying and pleading with him not to hurt my dogs, who of course were standing in the kitchen doorway wagging their tails. He looked at me and then turned toward them. Right before I woke up I heard him say "Come'ere, Daisy..."

Man alive. I could have done without that dream. Guess how many times I've checked the locks on my house since I woke up!!!

Insomnia has its perks, for sure.