Boom!

When I was maybe 11, my family and I were in the family room (how appropriate) one evening watching television. At least, I think we were all in there. Maybe just the kids were watching television, and Mom and Dad were off doing something else.

At some point, we all heard a loud BOOM! as something crashed upstairs in the attic. Now, unlike another episode when I didn't hear the sound, I did hear the sound, and jumped up when everyone else did. We all ran upstairs to look around. Did a ladder fall? No, there weren't any ladders around. Did a picture fall? No, none of us had pictures on our walls upstairs. Did the plumbing in the half-renovated bathroom come crashing down through the center of the house? No, it's still firmly in place, though, still half done. We looked around, and could find no cause for the sound.

Eventually we gave up looking for the sound source, and went back to the family room. Soon after, the phone rang with Mrs. Bretts calling to ask if we, too, hears the loud boom a short while ago. We told her we did, which caused even more concern. What could have possibly caused the noise that could be heard over all the neighborhood? We checked our front yards, the back yards, no accident, no screaming neighbors running around with gunshot wounds trailing blood down the street. Nothing.

We found out the next day that a meteor had hit the atmosphere over Northwest Indiana and exploded. Honestly, I can't say any of us offered that as a possibility.

Last night, Kris and I had a remarkably similar what-the-heck-was-that experience. In the middle of the night, when both of us were fast asleep in the doggie matrix (also known as the small bed where Kris, Bella, Annie and I sleep, all packed together in the bed so tight that extraction from such a pack requires delicate precision, and re-insertion into the matrix after a trip to the washroom in the middle of the night is nigh impossible), we heard a long, lonely arooooooOOOOOOOooooooOOOOOO!

Kris and I were instantly awake and rushing out to the living room. We looked around, trying to figure out the cause of Annie's howling. Annie sat in her place on the couch looking up at us with an expression of, "What?"

We couldn't figure out is the noise was actually Annie. She didn't seem to be the source, looking up at us innocently. Bella had been in the bed between us, so clearly she wasn't the source. We eventually figured Annie had howled, and wandered back to the bedroom. As I faded back to sleep, I wondered if meteors howl.

Maybe fire lightning does...