What you don't hear is the sound of grown woman silently choking down childhood fears.

Cats are not for weak of heart.

There was a time when I considered changing Tigerboy's name to Norman because of his silent 'through-the-shower-curtain' attack. His sister was amused by the sounds I made at 2 am when I stepped barefooted on the mangled baby rabbits she left on the bathroom floor.

Well, they like to be really cuddly to make me forget what well-armed psychopaths they really are, so I should've suspected something. Late last night, (or possibly very early this morning) I woke up to realize that I had rolled over against the wall in my sleep. My arm had slipped over the edge and was dangling in that monster-haunted space between under the bed and the cold, unfeeling wall.

My first impulse was to snatch it back to safety as any sensible child knows full well and would've done.... But that would've meant scooting over, and half-sitting up... and I was pretty comfy, and it taken so long to get to sleep in the first place, and I was grown up now and there was nothing to be afraid of, no matter how those baby dragons in Dragonslayer were chewing on that arm, and maybe if I just held real still I'd be asleep again soon.... and then, at that moment, my cat, who I can only assume was monitoring the whole thing telepathically, grabbed my hand with both paws and dig his claws in.

I didn't scream. But I didn't get back to sleep for quite awhile either with that much adrenaline doing the screaming for me.