When technology tricks us into believing that we’re going to be murdered in our sleep

Well hello again, awesome readers!

If you’re afraid of serial killers, you may relate to this.

The other night I decided to go to a yoga class with a friend. The entire evening was awesome. But that’s not what this post is about. This story is about what happened after I got home …

As always, the first thing I did upon arriving home was let my dogs out. And in case you ARE a serial killer, you’ll note how big and ferocious my dogs are from the featured picture above.

Letting my dogs out before I retire for the evening serves two purposes:

1. As you may have guessed, it let’s them have their final pee of the day
2. It gives them a chance to sniff around the parameters of my property to make sure that all is well. And by all is well, I mean: NO SERIAL KILLERS.

As my big, ferocious dogs pee and stroll with their noses to the ground, they set off motion-detector spotlights that are strategically placed around my yard. These lights are programmed to turn off ten minutes after any movement ceases. I call this technology genius. (When it works properly.)

Once the dogs are done emptying their bladders and making sure that all is well in the land of my yard, we go back into the house where they continue to make me feel safe and we end the day in a Zen state of sugarplums and happily ever after.

Except that on this particular night I turned my head towards the window in my bedroom and low-and-behold, ONE OF THE SPOT LIGHTS WAS STILL ON!

This is when I noticed that my sense of time was broken. As I lay there, blinded by the spotlight and mentally running through everything I had done since my big, ferocious dogs and I had entered the house, I suddenly couldn’t remember what ten minutes felt like because all I could think about was the serial killer lurking outside my house.

Naturally, I did what anyone would do when waiting for a serial killer to break in: I lay paralyzed in my bed.

Eventually I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew the sun was coming up and as far as I could tell, I hadn’t been murdered in my sleep.

During my morning coffee time, which is also my favourite time for writing, my thoughts were stuck in a sleep-deprived state of, “WHY didn’t the serial killer break in last night?”

Yes, it was indeed a mystery.

Later that day as I was once again outside with my big, ferocious dogs, I decided to channel my inner electrician and figure out the problem to my false sense of security. Also known as the ten-minute technology of my motion-detector yard lights.

Low and behold, A SPIDER WEB.

So while I lay in bed that night, terrorized by the thought of a serial killer lurking in my yard, just waiting for me to fall asleep so that he could break in and murder me, a spider was busy casting a web in front of my motion detectors. My fearful, sleepless night was all in vain. In my defence though, I have to say, serial killer … spider … almost the same thing, no?