Things That Go BOOM In The Night!

There has to be a logical explanation. I'm sure of it.

A few weeks ago in the middle of our Friday night slumber, my husband woke me up and asked if I would go upstairs and have Adam turn his music down. I roused myself from a deep sleep and slid off the side of the bed into my slippers. Sure enough, there was a distinct "boom bah boom bah boom boom" in full surround sound rocking our entire house. The effect was much like that of sitting beside a car with it's stereo on full blast at a stop light.

And yes, the origin of the "boom bah boom bah boom boom" was the upper story of our house, where the boy's bedroom is located.

Teenagers!

"Why is he even up at this hour, much less listening to music that loudly?" I grumbled as I pulled myself up the stairs.

About half way up, I realized the sound was actually coming from the media room.

"Adam!" I barked (have I mentioned that I'm not really at my "best" when my sleep is interrupted?) "Why are you watching a movie at this hour? Turn it down! You're waking up the neighborhood, for pete's sake!"

Grrr!

Adam's bedroom door sprang open and he appeared, looking a little disheveled and very perplexed.

"I didn't turn it on Mom, it woke me up too." he explained.

That was weird. I couldn't help but notice a discomforting eerie glow spilling into the hallway from the media room. With a measure of caution, I approached the DVD player (which is actually operated by remote from the upstairs office) and investigated, then pressed the "off" button. The noise stopped and the eerie glow disappeared.

I assured my son that it was just a fluke and went back downstairs where my husband, snuggled down deep inside the warmth of his blankets, had already fallen back to sleep.

"Walt! Walt!" I shook him until he popped his head from under the covers and opened his eyes.

"The DVD player just turned itself on." I explained. "It woke Adam up too, he hadn't even been in there!"

"Oh." my groggy spouse responded, "That's strange" ... and went right back to sleep.

I shrugged it off and crawled back into bed myself.

A few days passed and I hadn't thought any more of the incident.

Then it happened again. We came home from a holiday party and sure enough, there was a movie showing in full surround sound in our media room. The only problem was, no one was home when the show started.

This time, Mr. Taylor went upstairs and looked into it. Just as I'd done before, all he could think of to remedy the problem was simply to turn the DVD player off.

Once more, time passed and the self-starting movie situation became a distant memory for the three of us.

Until last night. Third verse, same as the first ... and second. It was the middle of the night again and everyone was sound asleep. I was awakened by two of our cats fighting in our bedroom. I got up and shooed Skippyjon, the younger cat, toward the vicinity of the foyer. He normally sleeps with Adam, but on occasion will manage to be outside his room when the door closes for the night. Skippyjon’s attempts to get into our bed instead always invites a brutal attack from the older Siamese.

Once a safe distance from the older, hissing, snarling cat, I scooped Skippyjon into my arms and began my trek to Adam's bedroom.

I paused at the foot of the stairs. There was that noise again. My first thought was that Adam was still awake at 2:45 a.m. on a school night and he was in big trouble. When I got to his door, Skippyjon in tow, however, I saw that his bedroom was dark. The boy was snoozing away.

Sighing, I dropped Skippyjon inside the bedroom door and closed it before he could run back out, then went to the DVD player and hit the "off" button.

By then, the whole ordeal was starting to get a little old! I went back to bed and woke Walt up, explaining that we really did need to figure out why the DVD player has suddenly acquired a mind of it's own and put this nonsense to an end. He assured me he would look into it.

Thank goodness.

This morning Walt left for work and I (because I wasn't able to get back to sleep easily last night) slept in. Once up for the day, I went through my usual morning routine, then sat down to work at the computer.

Within a few minutes, the whole house began dancing to the now all too familiar sound of "boom bah boom bah boom boom". Obviously, that DVD player is not planning to go down without a fight!

I've been tolerating the noise for a while now. For some reason I feel no sense of urgency in climbing up those stairs and turning it off this time. Maybe I'll just wait and see how long it lasts. Could be the dastardly DVD player is plotting against me, trying to see how many times I'll actually come up there and hit the "off" button before I finally rip the evil device out of the wall altogether. I can almost hear it mocking me now. Perhaps it plans to make me it's human slave.

Nah. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for the DVD player taking on a life of it’s own. I’m also fairly certain that it isn’t actually plotting my demise. It is, after all, only a shiny box with a bunch of wires stuffed inside. Surely it poses no threat to a human being such as myself.

Never the less, in case you’re “listening” my little electronic friend. You’d better watch out! The next thing that goes "boom" in the night around here just could be your shiny metal case hitting the floor. Don’t mess with me, you will NOT win!