Overactive Imaginations Anonymous

Houses make noise. This is true of all houses, and especially true of older houses.

Being alone in the house this week, and not having the television on to cover house noises, I've been hearing them. There aren't many. Most are outside noises. We're halfway between the hospital and the fire station, so there are a lot of sirens. With the window open, I can hear the brakes squeal on the bus to NYC. We're also in the flight path to Newark Airport. These are all white noise to me - I've already filtered them out.

Last night I heard a noise I couldn't filter, and it took me a while to figure out why.

It was a plumbing noise; the noise the pipes make after a toilet is flushed somewhere. I'm used to hearing these noises when no one's been near a toilet, but it's because I've been in apartments with other people's plumbing running through my walls. It took me a while to realize that alone, in my own stand-alone house, there should've been no one to cause plumbing noises but me.

I was only mildly concerned by this until I connected it with something else I hadn't paid much attention to: when I'd gone out to take out the garbage and rip up a few weeds from the garden in the afternoon, the gate that spans our driveway had been open. I fought with it for a good few minutes to get it closed (it's a DIY job, and not the best one), then went back to what I was doing and forgot all about it. Until I heard the running toilet.

The mind sometimes runs away with us at midnight when we're alone. It was plausible, wasn't it, that someone had come in through the gate, picked the two locks on the basement door, and was hiding out down there. And had just used the toilet. And then a little while later, I heard the sound again.

I was on the phone with cowboy_r when I heard the noise, and I made the connection aloud to him. We agreed that even though it was probably nothing, probably just a toilet somewhere in the house regulating itself, there was still a certain prudence to being wary. "It is probably nothing," I said, "but I'll feel better if I've checked it out. I'll call you back right away, and I'm not going to be silly enough to say, 'If I don't call you back right away'..."

But then I got an even better idea, so instead, I hung up and called immediately back on my cell phone, and took him along on the tour of the house. A much more sensible choice. Together we explored the main floor, then the basement, checking all door and window locks along the way. The basement was empty, but I was creeped out to a surprising degree, venturing down those stairs and peeking into the dark bedroom. I was glad of the company, in the form of a comforting and encouraging voice in my ear.

I checked out all the corners and crannies, with a thoroughness that would've made Dana Scully proud. Satisfied, I wandered back upstairs, again checking all the door and window locks on my way. I didn't feel nearly as silly as I thought I would. There's no harm in being wary.

I got back up to the bedroom and noticed that, by the clock on the phone, the adventure had taken a whole seven minutes. As I passed by the upstairs bathroom, I heard the noise again. I entered, and sure enough, it's the upstairs toilet regulating itself. Threat defused, and mystery solved.