Things that go bump in the night.

I live in a normal neighborhood in a regular town. Not much happens in our neighborhood, and not much happens in Albany. There isn't a lot of crime, we know our neighbors...so, generally, a good place.
We lock the doors at night, and I have two large dogs that give me a false sense of security. I feel safe.

One night last year, we were all asleep in bed- it must have been about 3am. I heard a clamor in the living room, but I didn't let it wake me all the way up. I figured the big dogs had come in the house. ( I swear Murphy has an opposable thumb that can work the garage doorknob.) I hoped if I lay very still, they would make enough racket to wake Spencer up, so that he could get up and let them out.

More racket, really loud. Why isn't Spencer waking up? Are the dogs fighting out there? Is that grunting?

It's coming down the hall. Maybe the dog is hurt, it's bumping into things.

Jesus Christ, it's a person.

Going into my daughter's roomSpencerwakeuptheressomeoneintheHOUSE.

What happened next was surreal. It probably took all of two minutes, but it seemed like both a split second and an hour.

Spencer, naked, got up and tried to process what was going on. I heard groaning, was it Madison? I called for her. "Madison?" "uuuuuhhhhhh...."
"Madison! Are you okay?"
"uuuhhhhh"

Maybe she fell out of bed.
Spencer's got shorts on now, he gets to Madison's room, where he simultaneously flips on the light and grabs a handful of hair.
From the full grown woman sitting on the floor at the foot of my daughter's bed.
Drunk.

Madison is sitting straight up, wide eyed. She had been staring at the woman, and she had the oddest quizzical expression on her face- I guess the expression you would expect if you woke up and there was some lady in your room. Tooth Fairy? I asked her why she didn't yell. She said she didn't want to "alarm" her.

Spencer pulls the drunk lady to her feet and we escort her to the living room. She has no idea who she is, where she is, how she got here, or where she should be She seems to have only the slightest use of language. She smelled so bad it stung my eyes. Fortunately for us, she had the presence of mind to bring her purse. Spencer opens it, and finds that she recently applied for an Oregon drivers license, and she listed her address as kitty-corner from ours. Her other drivers license revealed she was from Arizona, and her name, which I probably shouldn't reveal, so I will call her BonnieMarie.

Spencer takes her across the street, where she rudely dismisses him, like she's afraid she'll get in trouble if the people at the house she lives in wake up and see her coming home with a stranger.

You may wonder why we didn't call the police. It all happened so quick, we didn't really have time. And yet, we did have time. I remember that we considered it, and we decided to just get her home.

You may wonder how she got in. Spencer sure as hell did! She used pure drunken power- our door was locked, and she rammed into our (old) door with enough force to pop the lock. We have since installed a deadbolt.

The dogs slept through the whole thing.

We see her now and then. I am 100% certain that she has no idea what happened.