Why are we so afraid of the dark?

It’s something that’s been bugging, well, not bugging, exactly. Maybe nagging at me for a while now. Why the hell are we so afraid of the dark?

I’m not talking about life-threatening situations: if you are spelunking, cave-diving, running into a burning building or the like then by all means, light up everything you own. I’m talking about the normal things, like around our homes. I drive through some very rural areas on my way to and from work, and still I see houses with lights on around the entire perimeter, or worse, a street light type fixture attached to the house or one of the out buildings. If there were no vehicles at these places I would assume they were out and needed the lights on to safely make their way in after they returned, but most of these places have two and three cars in front of or around them. I just don’t get it. There’s nothing there in the dark that wasn’t there in the daytime. Maybe it’s the nature of my mild OCD that I *know* where everything in my house and yard is, so I don’t have a problem (usually) navigating in the dark. And normally when you’re out this far starlight is pretty bright on clear nights, so even if you don’t have the location of everything you own memorized it’s still pretty easy to get around without artificial lights. Maybe it was my time in the Boy Scouts. Even in the middle of the night, on a trip from the tent to the latrine, while we carried our flashlights we didn’t use them unless we had to.

I just don’t get it. I’m fine with motion sensitive lights that come on if there’s a boogey man (or deer, bear, etc) in the yard, those make sense. My parents actually have those at their place so they don’t have to leave a light on all the time or worry about when they are going to get there. What is it that frightens us so? And is it purely an American thing? A Western thing? or is it indeed a Human thing? Compared to other, less civilized mammals we are a bit fragile. If we could communicate with them most would probably be shocked at our limitations, and possibly even consider us to be visually and hearing impaired. Poor H. sapiens sapiens! On another note though, most of us are not going to be stalked by lions, tigers, or bears (oh my!) in our own yards, so again, what’s up with it?

I don’t know. All I do know is that it annoys the poo out of me when someone going the speed limit down a straight and flat road has their high beams on just because there are no street lights. Seriously, low beams are fine most conditions if you are going less than, say, fifty-five or sixty, and then if you are on a controlled-access roadway like an Interstate, you don’t even need them then.

Whatever.

I had K all day today. She was so well behaved. I don’t know why Critter calls her the "Little Demon". I pretty well wore her out at two different parks before we came back home to my place, and after a small temper-tantrum directed at the Wii she went right to sleep around 2000 or so. She was adorable. We spent most of the day up at my parents’ place. I was doing my own laundry and starting the sheets for our visitors that are coming up for Thanksgiving. The ones on the twin beds the grandkids sleep in were really dusty. I guess it’s been a while since they’ve been over there.

I’ve updated my career path maintenance in the HR computer at work to include an option for a lateral move to any of the four stores closest to Ember. I’ll let things go where they will. Still a little peeved I didn’t get an interview for Senior Manager, especially since the classmate that got promoted recently had to call me for a procedural question on Saturday. I almost joked with him about it, but considering what the question was and the time of day he called Corporate was probably on the other line wanting to know WHY THE HELL it wasn’t already done.The get a little pushy with the end-of-week stuff you see.

I miss her. I really do. I know I’ve mentioned that before but it’s something that’s worth mentioning again. Facebook and MySpace just don’t do it for us. We’re used to hanging out at each other’s places watching TV and just letting comfortable silences blanket us. And the shared dinners, those were always fun too. One of my fave’s is living in Japan for a year teaching English to grade schoolers, I have no idea how she’s doing it. I couldn’t be that far away (different country? hell, different freaking HEMISPHERE!) from Ember and Critter and survive. What may end up happening, if I get promoted up here and if Ember will allow it, it that I get a small one-bedroom place up here (something cheap) for the days I’m working and then on the three I’m off migrate down to her place, using it as a permanent address. Who knows?

I need to get out of the place I’m in, but it’s going to have to wait until after Christmas. Due to a compounding of errors, both on my part and that of my landlord, I am now a month behind on my rent since he waited two months to deposit some of my checks and the money was no longer there. I should have been paying more attention, true, but why would he deposit the October checks before the August ones? When I saw the October checks start to clear I just assumed the others had as well. So now I have to double up with November’s rent, pay for Christmas with my December paychecks, and then I can start saving up a deposit in January. I should have a good sized one by the end of February so I can get moved. I’m just glad I can come up with the money. It kind of makes me wonder where it’s all been going if I can afford (barely) to double up on the rent for a whole month…

Oh well. Bygones.

I might be going to the gym with Critter and another friend later tonight, but it’s already 2145 and we were supposed to have been *back* by now and we haven’t even left. I know it’s tough having to wrangle three kids through dinner and bedtime, but shouldn’t OtherGuy be helping with that every once in a while? I’m just asking…

Down to 10% on the laptop battery so I’d better wrap this up. Good night everybody!