If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be woken from a deep sleep and thrown into a hysterical state of panic, well today’s your lucky day because I’m an expert on the subject.

Why an expert, you ask? Well it’s because last night was the second time it’s happened to me 👍

I was enjoying REM (the dream kind not the Michael Stipe kind) when our house alarm went off. The stupid wind pushed the door open, but nonetheless, I shit my pants. Not really, but almost.

That’s the less interesting story, so I’ll tell you about the first time it happened to me.

Our house was being built, so my parents graciously invited me, PJ, and our 3 kids under the age of five, to live in their house, and even gave up their bedroom for us.

They stayed in my dad’s “Man Cave”, (Yuck, I hate that term) and my kids were in a room toward the front of their ranch-style home.

One night when we were all sound asleep, the alarm started blaring. I shot out of bed like an arrow. I don’t think my feet touched the ground before I got to the bedroom door and swung it open to see my dad standing at the keypad punching in the code. He’d forgotten that opening the door to the garage would set the alarm off.

When I realized it was him and not a stranger trying to take my children in the night, my adrenaline spike dropped so quickly that I began to hyperventilate. I started circling the floor saying, I think I’m going to pass out… I think I’m going to pass out… until, you guessed it, I passed out.

You’re probably imagining a fainting spell from a black & white movie where Clark Gable catches Claudette Colbert the moment she drapes her hand across her forehead.

Nope, it wasn’t that.

I looked more like Ace Ventura when he did the instant replay in reverse. I ran around like the Tasmanian Devil then flopped half my body on the bed. The other half was standing until I slid off the satiny bedspread, onto the floor and landed with a thud.

In the seconds before I lost consciousness, I was able to notice that PJ was on the other side of the bed and made no attempt to catch me Clark Gable-style.

I don’t blame him though because I’m sure he was in a state of shock & awe from what he was witnessing. The entire ridiculous scene took less than 30 seconds.

Well at least I didn’t pass out this time. I call that progress.