We have these neighbors. You know, *those* neighbors. They live a few houses down. Their front porch perenially displays a jumbled assortment of odd and broken items; their backyard even more. They are, however, super nice – although if I’m being honest I’ll add that our on walks past and during our neighborly exchanges of hello-nice-evening-he’s-getting-so-big!-have-a-good-one we have often strongly suspected that their happiness does not come, er, unassisted. Wink, nudge, sniff.
My toddler likes to stand on our deck and stand on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of their backyard from a couple of houses down. There are, it must be said, lots of interesting things back there. And lots of interesting noises. Who wouldn’t be curious?
So the other evening, having nestled the children snugly in bed, I was blithely grating cheese (yes, blithely; the house was still and quiet) for a late supper when I heard a Weird Noise. Sort of a cross between a howl, a honk, and a moan. My eyebrows flew up as the cheese fell into the bowl and that’s when I -dumdadum- Leapt To Judgment.
It went something like this:
Man, what is that?? ….Is that, what, a dying cow? I bet it’s coming from those crazy neighbors. What do they keep in those sheds down there anyway? Some sort of ill, sad bird?
And so on.
Until the noise happened again.
And I realized it was coming from my very own baby monitor.
In my very own living room.
Brought to me courtesy of my very own toddler.
Apparantly testing his vocal ranges before consenting to the above-mentioned nestling.
Oops.
