Last night we had a ferocious wind storm with driving rain. Round about 2 am, I heard the home alarm beep. Angus hard-wired a home intrusion alarm into all of the doors of the house and garage, so that every time a door is opened the alarm beeps.

The alarm beeped.

I awoke immediately. Not because I was scared, but because beeps and chimes and whistles wake me the fuck up. I lay there, breathing quietly.

*Beep* went the alarm.

*Beep* it went again, which could only mean the door was either A) closed or B) another door opened.

*Beep* again.

And again.

And again.

This could only mean one thing - the garage door had blown open in the wind again, as it does since it got warped and has decided not to close properly.

And because I'm one of those people who will absolutely cave under torture if you play repetitive sounds, who will tell you all the state secrets you want to hear and reveal all the passwords you need to get access to various systems if you put me anywhere near a car alarm or security alarm going off, this meant I would not be sleeping until the beeping was solved.

There was only one thing to do.

"Angus," I say, poking him in the back.

I get a grunt in reply.

"Angus," I say again, a little more urgently. "The alarm is beeping."

"It's the wind," he mumbles.

"Can't you turn off the alarm?" I ask.

"Can't remember the pin code," comes the reply. Most excellent.

*Beep*.

*Beep*.

*Beep*.

"Dude, the beeping isn't going to stop."

With a huge sigh that could only possibly convey a concession of the highest standard - he'd just agreed to amputate an arm, say, or to give up trains forever in favor of knitting toilet roll cozies - he rose out of bed. "Great. Now I won't be able to go back to sleep," he practically howled.

See now, this is not what we women want. Yes, I was perfectly capable of going outside and closing the garage door myself, only I would like to present the following in my defense, your honor.

1) I'm not the one who left the garage door open.
2) It was chucking it down with rain and I'm absolutely blind as a bat anyway - add rain and glasses and it just gets worse.
and 3) - and this is the most important one - He's the man.

That's right.

Feminist Helen has just declared that this was Man Work.

Because it is. Yes, there is nothing in my genetic make up that says that I, a woman, could not go outside and deal with the door. But say it wasn't a door banging in the wind. Say it was a pack of wild and ruthless gang members (so, so common out here in quiet rural Hampshire countryside) who were hanging on the doors in an attempt to lure a young(ish) woman outside to rape and pillage her.

I guess basically I felt it was his job to deal with the banging door because I have a vagina.

Here's how I see things: yes, I am firm on equal rights for women. I am clear that women can do anything that men can do. But that doesn't mean we have to do them. It just means we can. We can't all be Sigourney Weaver from Aliens, grabbing a flame thrower and searching hallways to kick some ass, just as we can't all be the useless cheerleader bitch who runs up the stairs when being chased by an axe-wielding madman, when everyone knows you need to run down stairs.

Some of us are in between. We'll hide in the hall closet. We'll grab a flame thrower and hunt down aliens if we have to, but it may mean we'll need a change of knickers handy.

And if I'm honest - which I try to be - as a woman I like to imagine that if a sound of an intruder is heard in the house that my man will be leaping out of the bed, soundlessly landing in a haunch as he listens, wolf-like, to any sound that may be heard.

"Don't move!" he'd order hoarsely. "There's a sound downstairs! It could be someone here to arrest your virtue!"

"But I don't have any virtue," I'd protest.

"Work with me on this romantic, unrealist fantasty, dammit! My first job is to protect you and my family! Stay there, bolt the door, and let me go down and face almost certain destruction and carnage in order that my family may live another day!"

I'd hold a pale white hand to the base of my throat, elegantly avoiding the froth of lace that spilled forth. "Be careful, my darling!" I'd urge as my beloved stealthily crept out the door to protect his hearth and home.

Of course, all of that is total horseshit, and not just because I don't sleep in a frilly nightgown. In my entire time of being a Woman Sleeping Next To Another Man (and there have been a few Other Men, I'll accept that "whore" mantilla), I've yet to meet a man who will do that. Well, apart from Kim that is, who worked paranoia in ways I have yet to understand. He kept an AR-15 (which he always called "My Ar-15 semi-automatic three round controlled burst." He was not into nicknames.) under the bed and would fly out the bed holding said weapon if you heard so much as a pin drop. That boy was a love, but man he had issues. I think he was working the He's the Man angle at little too closely to the wind.

No, in general most men are of the "I'm sleeping. If someone comes in and kills us, then so be it. If they're just here for the TV, they're welcome to it." My X Partner Unit in Sweden was one of those - I'd hear a noise in the house. I'd wake him. He'd shrug. I would be unable to sleep the rest of the night, certain masked gunmen were downstairs laying trip wires and looking to molest me.

I'll be frank (or Bob, whatever) - I like the idea that the man is willing to stare down the figure of danger for me. That he'd be the one to put himself in the way of danger just to ensure that I, as the mother of his beloved children, would be safe. This really flies in the face of my feminist leanings, I know, and I haven't yet worked out what's beneath all of this, so I'm going to chalk it up to the same compulsion I have for adoring firemen. Must be a pheromone thing.

Angus trudged outside with no small lack of grace. He closed the doors and the beeping stopped. He came back in and did have difficulties falling asleep again, but sleep came in the end. He protected his house and home against the horrible intrusion of the wind.

Me, I slept like a baby after that.

-H.

PS-Vicki, happy birthday to J and B!

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:56 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 1203 words, total size 6 kb.

1 I can't quite articulate why this post is linked to the fact that my husband had the audacity to get out of bed this morning complaining his back was sore and he hadn't slept well and then wondered why I went ballistic on him. You see, I AM THE ONE WHO IS 40 WEEKS PREGNANT RIGHT NOW - not him. So in this case he is the man, I have a vagina, I WIN. Make sense. Probably not. Sigh.

Posted by: Super Sarah at April 08, 2009 09:25 AM (0TP8F)

2 I think those kind of men are right up there with the Cinderella story! Sarah, no, no, you soooooooo win! And once you have to breath and push, you win for life. If he is a smart man and doesn't have a death wish lol.

Posted by: Justme at April 08, 2009 10:16 AM (8elqF)

3 Right with you on this one babes ... of course I can do 'guy' stuff but I bloody dont want to, ok? Sarah def wins but I am running a close '18 weeks pregnant with a cold from hell' second here and am feeling VERY BLOODY SORRY FOR MY PREGNANT ASS Will take my moaning else where now .. M x

Posted by: moira at April 08, 2009 10:25 AM (UGBIN)

4 I so hear you... I once woke up in the middle of the night to a very disturbing moaning and groaning sound from below, and also poked my husband to life- who did not even turn around. He just muttered: It's just an earth quake. So will you please go to sleep again. He did not say "moron"- well, not verbally. By the way, he was right. It was an earth quake. But I will be damned if I know how he knew, for he was definitely fast asleep until my elbow met his ribs.

Posted by: Lily at April 08, 2009 10:34 AM (Y8m4l)

5 And of course you had to bite your tongue the next morning when Angus declared "I lay awake for hours afterwards. Grmph." (I can't admit this on my own blog, but I own about every Harlequin novel ever translated in Dutch 3,95 euro romance history. I do keep up with must-reads and 'real' literature as well, but to be able to fall asleep with an empty head I read a romance novel with lots of hairy males, never to return from war and fainting girls 20 years their junior every now and then.) (That sounds so sad. :-))

Posted by: Vita at April 08, 2009 10:54 AM (fZwgf)

6 I detest alarm systems, so should partner be so silly as to require one, it's HIS PROBLEM to manage it. Period. 2 am or 2 pm. Now, rant aside... I'm 100lbs. My partner is nearly 2x that. Who's more useful against would-be intruders? Uh huh. I could go check, but then I'm going to do what? Cause bodily harm? Join me in laughing. I can exercise my right to equality in ways that are more realistic. Lifing large items and defending the shack isn't realistic

Posted by: Opal at April 08, 2009 11:37 AM (b/aL6)

7 Rare is the man that can't wake up, take care of whatever needs to be taken care of, and get back to sleep within seconds. I've been known to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and fall back to sleep halfway back to the bed. And my wife too is the perfectly capable one that declares certain things "man's work". Usually involving extreme cleanups involving bodily fluids or motor oil, or going where critters or vermin may potentially be found. She does know how to use Our Little Friend in case of intruders (pump once and rock away) and probably would be quicker to use it than I would. I did have to dissuade her from using it on the mouse that appeared in our bedroom one evening, as the landlord would likely have frowned upon buckshot holes in the walls.

Posted by: diamond dave at April 08, 2009 11:38 AM (RIYji)

8 Thank you so much for the birthday wishes.... I can't believe it's been a year.

Posted by: Vicki at April 08, 2009 12:24 PM (HsOD+)

9 Yep. As soon as there's a possible intruder, heavy lifting, or garbage to be taken out that feminist shit goes right out the window. This is part of why we have a large dog. If he's still sleeping, then there's no emergency.

Posted by: ~Easy at April 08, 2009 12:46 PM (IVGWz)

10 Getting up in the middle of the night to close doors, throw the cat out, lock up or repel invaders definitely Man Work. Makes up for the no of times they sleep through screaming infants. Just a division of labour thing - nothing anti-feminist about it.

Posted by: Betty M at April 08, 2009 12:56 PM (q0m9f)

11 When I lived in an all-girls dorm in high school, it was the understood rule that, because one of the girls' boyfriend slept there against the rules, we got to wake him up whenever we pleased to kill bugs, unclog toilets, and lift heavy things. Echoes of "Chaaaaaase. There's an aaaaant in the baaaathroooom" could be heard at all hours. I'm a femenist insofar as I think women ought to be treated as equals. I don't, however, think that women and men ARE equal. Women have uteruses. This makes us inherently different. It means we have responsibilities, burdens, and blessings that our penis-wielding counterparts do not. It also means that, goddamnit, they better remember how chivalry works, because it's up to us to make sure humanity continues to exist. And chivalry means, yes, asshole, I'm a lady, so give up your seat on the train for me, kill that big, scary spider, and lift that box that I cannot lift. Or else you will find yourself blue-balling it and going the way of the dinosaurs.

Posted by: D at April 08, 2009 01:23 PM (2Q9WD)

12 I'm with D completely...minus the expletives. It only happens once or twice a year, but the Super Model Mrs. Solomon will wake me up having heard an "intruder" downstairs. I go down with a hammer in hand (I don't have a bat or gun) and actually plan mentally what I'll do if one is there. So when I get back to bed, the adrenaline has me wide awake for at least an hour. But it's what men do (or at least what we should do). I bear that burden gladly, especially if it gets me out of dealing with "screaming infants" as Betty M said.

Posted by: Solomon at April 08, 2009 03:18 PM (x+GoF)

13 I think I'm crying, I'm laughing so hard! What a hoot. So glad this happens to other people. I've put a foot in his back and literally punted him out of bed before. To go check out a noise, or to let the dog out since he's the one who didn't let the poor old thing out before coming to bed. It's not often, but it definitely happens. He gets critter patrol, he gets trash detail, he delivers things to the attic. Because he's the bloody man. And that sounds like a perfectly rational reason to me!

Posted by: Jodie at April 08, 2009 03:51 PM (4twyr)

14 Ah, hilarious. Especially the whore mantilla. Can I have one too? My ex is a silly man, but I think the time I loved him most was when he physically fought off a crazy man who attacked me in a marketplace. Woulda married him right there. Good thing I didn't.

Posted by: Laura at April 08, 2009 04:25 PM (XIDye)

15 Tonight I sent H out in his underpants to check whether I'd left my ipod in the car. I had, so I win.

Posted by: May at April 09, 2009 10:25 PM (3jesX)

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