Silent night

My alarm goes off at 5:30 every morning. I get up and spend an hour working -- usually writing research papers -- before anyone else is awake in the house.

To make my writing hour more effective, I try to get up quietly without waking others. If Jonathan decided to wake up, for example, that would be the end of my work time.

So, in order not to disturb the family, I take certain precautions. I turn the volume on the alarm clock down low. I keep the lights off until I'm out of the bedroom and down the hall. I tread softly in my stockinged feet. Sometimes my efforts not to wake the family backfire.

Like this morning.

Growing up, one of the neatest things about my grandparents' house was their doorbell. It was made of four long poles, the longest probably five feet long, and pushing the button outside the door caused little hammers inside the poles to sound out a very loud chime. As a kid, it was fun to ring the bell and listen, or walk down the hall and bang the poles together to make a riot of noise.

One feature of our older new-to-us home is a doorbell just like my grandparents. It is made up of four very long poles, the longest about five feet, and when you push the button outside, the little hammers bang out a loud chime. We wondered about replacing the doorbell, since we have a small child who likes to make noise, and the temptation to bang the poles constantly would be great. We decided, however, we would see how said child would do with the temptation to knock the poles together before we looked for a not-as-cool replacement.

Turns out the child is very well behaved, and he doesn't bang the doorbell poles together enough to warrant a new doorbell purchase and install. So we're keeping the loud antique.

Anyway, this morning my alarm went off very quietly at 5:30. I turned it off and rolled out of bed ... one or two snooze cycles later. As I stumbled to the door, I grabbed my blanket, and groggily tiptoed my way out of the bedroom in the darkness.

We used to have a night light shining in the hall, but Jonathan moved it into his bedroom -- the next door over. Consequently, it was pretty dark in the hall. But I was only headed straight to the end into the living room, where I would turn the light on and settle in to work.

It was cold in the hall. While tiptoeing most gently, I unfolded my blanket and shook it out to wrap around me. With one light, delicate, silent motion, I swept the blanket up over my shoulders -- and flung it straight into the four long doorbell poles hanging in the hallway.

I will now let you imagine what a five foot long chime sounds like when it swings and crashes suddenly against its four foot six neighbor at 5:45 in the morning in a silent house. Now imagine four of those poles swinging and crashing together in the dark silence. Needless to say, it is not quite the same decibel level as the tiptoe of stockinged feet.

I stuck out my hands in haste to silence the crashing bells, and instead sent them swinging powerfully into the wall, thumping and clanging. Quickly, I grabbed the longest and held it, then grabbed the next one with my other hand. Within a few seconds I had steadied them all. I held them until they stopped vibrating.

The house was silent again.

To the silent house I offered a single word. "Sorry" I whispered.

More silence. Then from my darkened bedroom I heard a low chuckle.

I tiptoed silently, in the dark, in my stockinged feet, into the living room, where I wrote quietly for an hour.