Homies, Day 1: Night of the Living Dead Pooh-Bears

I don't pretend to understand why a household of women* asked two derelict college students to house-sit for them while they were vacationing in Zimbabwe. But I do understand perfectly why the derelict college students agreed in a heartbeat. Big house, minimal schedule, two big TVs, and, perhaps best of all, a pink-walled room loaded for bear (literally) with stuffed animals. We were asked to spend a week looking after various flora and fauna around the house. We agreed.

We arrived around eight yesterday evening and moved in. It took about seven trips from the car to the living room to cart in all our essential junk, but we managed. Then, after a short and very masculine celebration that everyone is glad wasn't filmed, we got down to the serious business: movie watching.

We took a quick break to deal with the animals (two succulent bunnies and an over-friendly dog), then plopped our lazy selves back in front of the ol' tube and soaked up some more cinematic goodness. We could tell this was going to be a good week.

Around two in the morning, we stumbled off to bed. I was lucky enough to sleep in the pink-walled, bear-loaded room. The lights went down and I pulled the blankies up to my chin, fiercely hugging an adorable head-sized panda named Panda.

A half-hour later, I was still wide awake, and sweating like a dog. Actually, that's not a good analogy. Dogs don't sweat. In any case, I was upset. There were about a dozen different pooh-bears scattered around the room, and they were all watching me. It was freaky. I couldn't sleep.

At four in the morning it was beyond freaky. I was standing in the middle of the bed, turning in sudden jumps to make sure one of the other pooh-bears wasn't sneaking up on me, waving poor Panda like a weapon. The pooh-bears all just leered back at me in quiet contempt, waiting for me to drop off to sleep.

That's when I heard it; a quiet thump-thump like something out of Poe's Tell Tale Heart. I could hear the bears' hearts beating!

One of the stuffed creatures had a most hideous eye. It had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it and whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.

I couldn't take it any longer. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I flung myself down the hall to my homie and fellow FCN contributor's room. I found him sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed. There was mosquito netting pulled tightly all around him. The scene was strange enough to make me stop short. When I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, he slowly raised his finger to his lips, eyes still closed.

"Shhhhh ..."

Two minutes later, we both poured, screaming incoherently, into the dinky yellow car we use to get around, and spent the rest of the night reclining in the front seats, eyes wide open. The pooh-bears watched us sorrowfully from the second story windows until we drove away to school. Freaks.

* There's a guy in the household, too.