Scaredy Cat ... literally

It's that time of the month and things are about to get gross. (actually, the time has already passed. sorry!) but I can't leave ya hanging any longer: here is my first real blog post dedicated to scaring!

wahoo!

I'm going to start out with one of the seldom times that I wasn't the one doing the scaring. I can honestly say that I've never been more scared in my whole life...

I'm basically going to be writing word for word from my journal entry because I don't want to taint any part of the story -- it's just too good! In fact, I actually tried to upload a picture of my the pages from my journal but I'm thinking that my writing was too messy. But before I begin I'm just going to give you a little background info so you can get some context.
Mark and I lived in the tiny town of Beazer for the summer right after we got married and for the summer when I was pregnant with Laikyn. It's about 10 minutes passed Cardston on the way to Waterton. It's honestly heaven on earth. My house was totally surrounded by trees and I had a creek running through my back yard! I had an old, wooden swing set right next to my house, the cutest little porch you ever did see, and a big garden as well. The garden is where I was on the day I thought I was going to die. I was putting some freshly cut grass in between our row of onions and potatoes to make it less muddy for me to walk on and to keep the soil rich. Our garden was located in the farthest corner of our huge lawn, a good 50 meters away from my house. Two of its edges were next to grass as high as my waist. I would randomly hear some animals crawling through it. It freaked me out every time.

Also, for those of you who don't know Beazer/Waterton area, bears sightings are fairly common. Cougars aren't as common to see, but they're still there. They are stealthy and stalk their preys. I'm afraid of bears, but every time I've had an encounter with one I've made it out totally fine. You just slowly back away and you're usually good. I've never had an encounter with a cougar before. The thought of a cougar is way more frightening to me than any bear. **keep in mind that I'm about 6 and a half months pregnant at this time and I was big. In fact, people often told me that I was the biggest pregnant lady they had ever seen.

anywho, let's get down to the good stuff.

                                                                                                                                                              June 10, 2013


I know I wrote in here not too long ago, but I wanted to tell you something that happened to me this past Saturday, so here it goes: Mark and I were doing yard work all day on Saturday. While he was gone over to Gpa and Gma McMurray's house, I decided to go do some work on the garden. As I'm putting some grass down in the row I was in, I heard a big thumping noise in the long grass just to the south of me (probably 8 feet away or so.) It scared me a bit because I had heard an animal in that same grass earlier in the day. I tried to forget about it and just keep on raking the grass to spread it out in the row, but then I heard a thump again - only this time it was even louder. I was totally confused. I couldn't figure out what kind of animal would make a thumping noise like that when it moved, but I decided I wasn't going to hang around to find out. I put down my rake and jumped over the whole row of onions to distance myself as far as I could from the long grass.


As I was walking back to the house, all of the sudden I heard this low, growling noise coming from behind me. I froze instantly. I was so scared. I slowly turned around to see where the noise was coming from but didn't see anything, so I continued on walking. I knew that cougars were sneaky and could camouflage themselves and I was trying to remember what I had learned at the Nature Shows in Waterton about cougars, but everything I had learned was fleeing from my mind. And actually, I thought that maybe it was a badger. I hadn't ever had a run in with one of those either, but I had heard that they're vicious and they hiss or something? Maybe it was that.


I tried to calm myself down and slow down my heart rate by telling myself that it was probably just the neighbor's dog (having a high heart rate can be bad for your baby), but my senses knew that it wasn't just a dog. I also reminded myself that if it was actually a cougar or something similar, running would probably only make it worse, so I continued to walk. A few seconds later I heard the growl again, and this time it was loud. really loud. Whatever animal it was, it was mad. As soon as I heard that growl for the second time, I let out a blood-curdling scream,  and took off running, my extra 40-pound body and all. I was just hoping that I could make it to the house before whatever was behind me ate me for lunch.


The next few seconds were totally blurry. In fact, I don't remember anything about the run until I opened my garage door and slammed it as hard as I could behind me. I couldn't believe that I made it into the house without being caught!! As I turned around through the window of the door to catch a glimpse of what it was, I saw Mark's facing peering through the very bottom of it. Only the his eyes, forehead, and hair were visible.


why the heck is he crouched down so low? and why was he right outside the door? maybe he saw what was chasing me and scared it away. obviously he saw something and can fill in the missing details for me. thank goodness he came back from his grandparents' house.


And then after those few seconds I realized it: Mark was the cougar!! That dirty, dirty dog!
I instantly felt weak and faint in every part of my entire body. I went over to the couch and totally collapsed. Mark came in behind me and fell onto the floor and was rolling around like a mad man in laughter. He seriously couldn't breathe. I've never seen him laugh harder than he did that day, and I  haven't since. Then I started to laugh at just how ridiculous that whole thing was, and soon that laughter turned into hysteria. Next thing I knew I was bawling my eyes out like a little baby and continued to cry like that for another half hour.  It was such a relief to know that I actually didn't get chased by a cougar, but my body still reacted as though I had been and so it made me emotionally and physically drained. It literally sucked the life right out of me. I hadn't ever felt more tired during my whole pregnancy. Needless to say I took a two-hour nap. I also completely lost my appetite. I didn't eat hardly anything the whole rest of the day! (and you know that's a big deal because eating was the only way to keep me from throwing up!)


I honestly can't think of one other incident in my life that has got my blood pumping as much as that did. Mark told me that while I was running to the house he had taken off after me and said he thought I knew it was him after the very first growl. Ya, I could only wish I was that smart. I guess when I looked back the first time to see what it was, I looked right at him? I didn't see nothin'. And then once I slammed the door and had turned around, he realized I had no idea because of the look on my face. I was shaking my head back and forth and he said my eyes looked like they were going to fall out on the floor.  Plus, I was covering my ears -- a telltale sign of me being really scared. (I don't know why I do that, but I do. It's weird, I know.) Oh, and those "thumps"... those were him too. He was chucking huge rocks into the grass beside me.


What a punk! He wanted me to write it down in here so our kids could read about it later and to make sure everyone knew who the real 'scaring master' was. Kids, if you're reading this, your dad is crazy.

                                                                                                                              <3 Bethany

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so that's the end of my journal entry. Mark's Grandma was not impressed when she found out, to say the least. Actually, not very many people were. I was 6 and a half months pregnant after all!! What if I tripped and fell while running? But I'm alive and Laikyn is healthy, so I guess no real damage was done. (other than I'm only slightly terrified of cougars now). The only regret I have is that I wish somebody could've gotten that on film. Oh well.

So there you have it, my first scaredy cat post. and now you know why it's called 'Scaredy Cat ... literally.' I've never been a fan of cats...

ps. I still have yet to get revenge on Mark. any ideas??