When Robert, Jr. was just a youngster, his bedroom was across the hall from our bedroom. The way our bedroom was arranged, Rudene slept next to the door that entered our bedroom as well as near the door that went into our bathroom. So there was a path that went by Rudene’s side of the bed from the hall to our bathroom. There was good reason for this arrangement: if a bugger got in the house, it would have to get past Rudene before it got me.
Anyway, there were times at night when we would hear Robert, Jr.’s little fat feet hit the floor, and he would come pity patting across the hall for our bathroom. We were like most other parents and could hear every sound our little ones made, day or night. Each time he came through our bedroom, he would tell his mother, who was awake by the time he reached our room, that he was going to the bathroom. When he came back by, Rudene would go back to sleep knowing all was well.
One day we had our house carpeted, and it really cut down on the sounds in the house.
That night neither Rudene nor I heard Robert, Jr. get up and come across the hall. As he reached our bed, he tapped his mother on her shoulder and said, “I’m going to the bathroom.” This literally scared the daylights out of Rudene. She let out a blood curdling scream and sprang across the bed, across me, and if it had not been a king size bed she would have landed in the floor. For a few seconds I dreamed I was in the Old West and a wild Indian had stampeded a herd of buffalo over me, for I was almost trampled to death.
All the commotion Rudene created scared poor little Robert, Jr. and he was crying and trembling. Rudene cried and shook and finally settled down enough to laugh, but she cautioned our little son in the future to just go to the bathroom without telling her, “I’m going to the bathroom.”
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