and we're back with this edition of ... possibly the greatest story ever told.

Hello friends,

      

 So,  please take the milk carton of your choice, have a seat or lie down and get ready for story time.

 This is a very real, all too true story:

    Long long ago I was sitting at my desk,  messaging with a friend, on the computer, sometime in the middle of the night.  Earlier that evening I watched House on Haunted Hill and wasn't quite ready to turn in.
The room I was in had a large window and a sliding glass door that led out to a screened-in patio.   The outside light on the patio wasn't working and it was exceptionally dark out. 
Suddenly, as I'm talking to my friend, I heard a rapping on the window. 
I froze for a moment and held my breath.  For some reason, I thought if I didn't breathe it would make me hear better.  Same rule applies when you turn the music down on the car radio when you're lost. 
I waited a moment, hoping it was nothing, or that I'd imagined it.  I watched my friends messages coming in, and was about to reply, when again... rap, rap, rap.  This time my fear was palpable.  I was legitimately frozen, trying to listen.  What was I hearing?   Again, right away came another succession of tapping; tap, tap, tap.    I couldn't move.   I wanted to see what was outside; whatever was making that noise,  I had to know. But, what if I got my face close to the window, to try to glimpse a sign of anything  in the blackness, and there looking back at me, was Jason, Mike Myers or Kanye West?   How would I cope seeing any of these horrible things?   I mustered up the courage to move and I started to type, I informed my friend, who lived hundreds of miles away, deep in the heart of Chicago, and couldn't get to Florida to save me before whatever was rapping would probably do me in, about the situation.   Again, rap, rap, rap.  It's safe to deduce that I was in complete full blown anxiety mode about now.  I tried, unsuccessfully to turn the patio light on.   I went into the living room and turned the light on there; as it illuminated the interior of the house, it only increased the darkness of the exterior.  It was even more unnerving when I heard another round of rap, rap, raps.  I went back to my friend on the computer and expressed my concern.  My friend, who saw my 'concern' as sheer unadulterated terror, instructed me to call the police.  I didn't want to do that.  The police, really.  Rap, Rap, Rap.   OK, the police you say, that's may not be a bad idea.  Rap, Rap, Rap.  Yes, you know, upon reflection... that's a great idea!  But, I'll call the non emergency police.  That will satiate me and yet still deal with the rapist, murdering, chainsaw or hatchet wielding lunatic, rapping on my window, right then.  
I found the number and dialed.  As I was explaining the situation to the person on the line... rap, rap, rap...
   I saw lights outside bouncing around through the pitch black.   "They're at your place now," the voice on the phone informs me.  That was crazy quick, I thought to myself.  I hung up and hoping it was the police, I bravely, courageously, opened the sliding glass door to whatever possibility was about to confront me, on my patio.  Ah two beautiful heroes dressed in blue.  I let the police officers in, and while one of them was searching the patio with his bright flashlight, for a sign of anything, surely the killer, rapper was hiding in a dark corner or left a sign before he shuffle ball changed into the night...
   The other officer was inside my living room with me, getting information.  Suddenly, I hear, "ma'am. ma'am."   I turn to see the burly officer waving me to follow him out to the porch.  He led me directly to the area where I heard the rapping and pointed his flashlight onto the spot on the window and says without any inflection, as serious as can be,

"Ma'am, we found your perp." 

  There, frozen on the sliding glass door was a lizard with his prey in his mouth.

And that's the story about the day I called the police on a lizard.