Scaredy Cats

We love nature.  Sometimes it just doesn't love us back.

We went up to Kevin's family cabin again this weekend, and I woke up way too early Saturday morning.  I told my body to ignore what my bladder was saying, but around 5AM, I gave up and got up, went outside, shuffled down the stairs, and stumbled the length of the cabin to get to the toilet in the far back corner of the building.  By the time I got back upstairs, I was too awake to go back to sleep.  Dang it!

I turned on the lamp and started reading.

"Whazzuhmatter?" Kevin mumbled from the twin-sized bed on the other side of the end table.

"Nothing," I replied.  Pause.

"Can I use your eye mask?"

"Okay," I giggled and tossed it over to him.  He looked so cute in my fuzzy white mask.

About an hour later, I noticed he was curled up in the fetal position.  I wasn't sure if it was because he was cold or just too big for the bed, but I got up and pulled a quilt over him.

He jumped like he was being attacked . . . and had been struck blind.  He jerked his head way back so he could see through the little slit at the bottom of the eye mask . . . and found me laughing at him.

"Sorry, babe," I whispered.  "It's just a blanket."

He groaned, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

Later on that afternoon, we were lazing in the lake . . . well, I was lazing, floating on a little yellow inner tube, while Kevin used a big rake to muck out some leaves and branches near the dock.   

My bikini bottom has strings on the side; from what I can tell, they serve no real purpose, just dangle there.  Saturday afternoon, though, they were submerged with the rest of my backside while my arms and legs and head rested on the top of the tube. 

And then a string got pulled.  I yelped and instinctively thrust my pelvis up and out of the water, but then I realized I didn't really have anywhere to go, being on a flimsy little yellow inner tube.  My first thought -- and what does this say about me? -- was not that I was being attacked by a shark or piranha or any other water-dwelling creature.  Nope.  My first thought was, some psycho guy is in the lake underneath my tube pulling my bikini strings!

And then I realized it was more likely just a fish.

"A fish just tugged on my bikini string!" I called out to Kevin.  He gave me one of those old-farmer-head-nod things to acknowledge he'd heard me, but kept on doing what he was doing.  Seriously?  I could have been maimed, buddy!  A little sympathy?

I felt better ten minutes later when he let out a yelp.  Taking a break from his work, he was squatting to submerge himself shoulder deep in the shallow water.  The only thing visible was his ratty old cowboy hat and the can of beer he was carefully holding above the water . . . until he shot up with that yelp.

"It bit me in the nipple!"  he yelled.  Seriously.  Pretty sure the whole lake heard him.

I laughed.

"It's bleeding!" he called, looking for sympathy like I had.

He'll live.

The next day we went for a hike.  I was in the lead on the 4.5-miler since Kevin walks as slow as he drives.  I was thinking how nice it is to be married now, having someone to protect me in case of bears or something, when my hand hit a big cobweb.  I was wiping it off on my shirt when I heard a roar and a thud behind me, so loud that I fully expected to see my new husband on the ground when I turned around.

Nope.  Upright.  Wiping wildly at his face.  Having a good foot on me in height, I'd caught the bottom corner of a giant cobweb with my hand; it had clothes-lined him.  He looked at me with an I'm-trying-to-remain-calm-but-I'm-really-kind-of-freaking-out look in his eyes.

"Is there a spider on my face?"

And then I did a rotten new wife thing.  I laughed.

"No, there's nothing on your face," I assured him.  And then, trying to be sweeter, I checked his shirt and the back of his neck and his legs while he wiped the web off his face.

Wife of the year I am not.

I picked up the water bottles that had flown out of the pockets on his backpack when he'd done the  Matrix-esque move after his face met the cobweb, amazed at how loud they'd sounded.  I was sure glad it hadn't been him hitting the dirt; he's just a smidgen too big for me to carry out of the woods on my back.

I got mine twelve hours later.  Back in our apartment, lying in my nice, soft bed, plumb tuckered out from our outdoorsy adventure, I heard what I was certain was a rat, right behind my head and surely about to jump on my face.  I did a whole-body convulsion thing, the same kind of thing you do when you dream you're falling.

"What?" Kevin asked from behind me.  I figured if he didn't see it, it must not be real.  I rolled over and lifted up my eyemask. 

"What was that noise?" I asked.  His look of concern change to one of guilt.

"This?" he said, then used his bottom teeth to scratch his upper lip, replicating the sound that had just scared the crap out of me.  I grabbed his face with one hand, squeezing his cheeks like a chipmunk.

"I thought a rat was about to jump on my face!" I hissed.  He just laughed.

If we ever do see a bear in the woods, we're both totally going to wet our pants.