In honor of Halloween, write about a time you were scared.

I have become much easier to scare since I had kids. My subconscious seems to enjoy scaring the crap out of me from time to time, usually as I am trying to fall asleep (which is why I take Lunesta). It dredges up things I read or watched decades ago and waves them around until I am too scared to sleep. I can calm myself down but then it starts back up. The last time I wigged myself out really well was the last time DH went camping & I was alone with the boys. Our garbage can corral is near the window of our bedroom and wind makes the cans bump into one another and occasionally varmints get in them & are noisy as well. I know this. Rationally I am perfectly certain what I am hearing is rattled garbage cans and eventually I can talk myself into that but before I get there my subconscious gets convinced that what is actually out there is a couple of guys with knives or something wanting to kill us. So for awhile I sit there scared to death, plotting how to get back to the boys room, barricade it and get us all out of the house & which of my distant neighbors I might reasonably try to run to while carrying 2 small boys and chased by a couple homicidal maniacs. It never occurs to me to just call 911 in these situations. So I laid there for awhile, listening in fear, waiting to hear something, scared to death. I wanted to turn the porch light on but there is no switch for it our room (9 years I have been asking DH to fix that but so far, nothing). So in order to turn on the porch light & actually see what is out there I have to go into the kitchen, past the French doors, where anyone out there can see me, and then flip the switch. This is where sanity comes back. I sleep in the nude. I am 39, carrying around about 20lbs excess weight and a bit...um..saggy all over shall we say. I also have a gun safe in my room. So I am thinking that whoever is outside lurking with murder on his mind might just reconsider when confronted by a naked, shotgun wielding, crazy woman shouting that she knows damn well she is legally allowed to shoot his ass for being on her property. The thought of which sends me into a fit of giggles. I then get up and walk naked (and unarmed) through the kitchen and turn on the porch light. Back in my room I look through the window and see a varmint of some sort rooting around in the garbage. So I open the window and shout at it & it lumbers off. but I can't really get back to sleep because I keep remembering all the Unsolved Mysteries episodes I have seen with families in isolated homes being murdered in their beds by unknown people.