Walking In The Dark

I have a confession. Since we moved into the "new" house when I was eleven, and my bedroom was upstairs, I have been in the habit of counting stairs. Crazy, I know. But I hate walking up or down stairs in the dark, not knowing how many steps there are, and tripping over the last one, or trying to step on one that isn't there. Either way, there is a good chance I would end up on the floor! And we all know that I am much too graceful for that!

Anyway; so by counting the stairs the first time I climb them, I can confidently walk up the stairs without tripping every time, even in the dark. Now, during summer in Alaska, it doesn't really matter, because it doesn't get dark enough. However, now that the sun doesn't rise until after 8:30am (since we just turned our clocks back) and it sets before 5pm, it is most definitely dark when the lights are out.

Last night, Nick and I were getting to bed a bit too late, although it was much less late when I remembered to set our clocks back. Nick is always the gentleman and waits for me to make it to the the stairs before turning out the light. So I am on my way up, counting stairs as I go, and I get halfway up when I hear Nick bump into the gate at the bottom of the stairs and grunt out his "ouch". I paused to giggle, it was just to funny to let pass. Then ten seconds later, as he gets to the landing, he crashes again, this time into Baby Nick's airplane, and again grunting out his dismay. This time I lost it completely. The late hour had much to do with my incapability of handling the situation with dignity, I'm sure. But I was laughing so hard, standing just two steps from the top, trying to be quiet as to not wake the kids, and I found I had no strength left to stand. I collapsed at the top of the stairs laughing, unable to regain control. Nick is somewhere in the middle of the stairs laughing at my laughing. I asked him to help me up, so I wouldn't get trampled on his attempt to conquer the flight of stairs, but he couldn't see me. So we are both groping around in the dark, afraid to move and get hurt, when we finally made contact. I was still laughing so hard it took a couple attempts for Nick to heft me up off the floor.

When we were finally at the top of the stairs, Nick set me off laughing again when he said with chagrin, "I suppose this makes more good blog material."