Coincidentally, if the house starts a-beeping, forget about sleeping

My dream last night proves it — I am the King of Coincidence.

I dreamed that I was lying in bed, which coincidentally was exactly where my sleeping lump was lying at the time.

In the dream, I was lying there wondering, “Did I lock the front door?” My dream-self got up and went to check.

However, when I got there, the front door looked nothing like the front door of the house that my waking-self lives in. But hey, this was a dream, and in dreams you sort of overlook architectural anomalies like that. This front entrance was a big double door at the bottom of a short flight of stairs.
I checked the lock, only to find that it didn’t have one. All it had was a doorknob, which I turned.

The double doors swung open onto the night, where I found that I was living somewhere on an old, slightly seedy urban street—not at all like the newer, suburban world that lurks outside my waking life.

Still, the neighborhood seemed pretty lively because there were plenty of people moving about on the street. It seemed to be an interesting neighborhood, too, because the street was filled with folks of every ethnic and racial persuasion. It was a warm summer night, and judging by the quick, confident steps of everybody moving about, the night was young. New Orleans, maybe? Lively excitement lay ahead.

Part of me wanted to step out and join the fun, but not tonight — I just wanted to lock up and hit the sack again.

As luck or coincidence would have it, a slender young man across the street noticed my door swing open, and he said to his friends, “Hey, that door just opened. Let’s check it out.” Apparently my dream-door had remained shut for some time in that neighborhood before I decided to dream about whether it was locked or not.

The young man walked across the street and said to me, “Are you open?” He must have thought that it was a nightclub of some sort because he was dressed for a night on the town. Nice hat, I remember thinking.

“No, sorry,” I told him. “This is a private residence. I’m just trying to figure out how to lock up.”

He nodded and walked off down the street.

But now others noticed that my door was open. One by one, and soon in couples and small groups, they flocked to my door, wanting to get in.
I told them all the same thing, but they were reluctant to leave. “Look,” I told them, “this is just my home. There’s nothing inside that would interest you.”

One pretty blonde girl spoke up for the dissatisfied crowd. “Yeah?” she said. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you lived on the other side of Jack-in-the-Box.” The crowd murmured its assent.

I was about to ask her what she meant by that, but I just smiled and thought to myself, “Wow, people say the strangest things in a dream.”
But it’s hard to hold onto a dream once you realize that it is a dream, so I woke up.

And I heard the beep.

I lay there for a half-minute or so, wondering if the beep was still part of my dream, when it came again.

“Beep.”

And then, “Beep,” another half-minute or so later.

Now, as the King of Coincidence, I should tell you that I had gone through the entire house just the day before changing the batteries in each of my five smoke alarms. I didn’t want to be awakened in the middle of the night by a maddening beep, because — coincidentally — they always decide to beep at murky post-midnight when they go bad. Never at noon.

So now, with a whole house full of new-juiced smoke alarms, what could possibly be making that noise in the murky middle of night?
I stood under the alarm in the bedroom. “Beep,” a distant voice said. Nope, not that one.

One by one I walked to each of the five smoke alarms and listened. Nope, not that one. Or that one. Or any of them. What the heck?
I stood in the kitchen and listened to the dishwasher. A distant “Beep.” Nope.

Washer and dryer? Uh-uh.

Computer? Sorry. Try again.

I listened to the Comcast box in the living room. “Beep,” a voice said — nearer, but not here. I was getting closer.
Finally, I stood at the front door and listened. Could it be a neighbor’s car beeping at me?

“Beep.”

It was the front-door home alarm panel! I guess when you hear a beep late at night, your home-invasion alarm should be the first thing you check, but it never occurred to me. We don’t have much crime on this side of Jack-in-the-Box.

A light flashed on the panel, saying “Low battery.” In all of my battery-swapping the previous day, I had forgotten that there are more things than smoke alarms that cry for your attention, and this one — coincidentally — waited until I had serviced every other nine-volt soul in the house before expressing its jealousy at 2 a.m.

Or maybe it wasn’t coincidence. Maybe it was just plain nastiness. Alarms don’t always play nice. Just ask any burglar.

I hit the “cancel” button, vowing that I would see to the alarm’s needs sometime after breakfast. It seemed satisfied with my promise and fell silent.
I went back to bed, but sleep had fled from my racing mind, for there was much to consider:

Was it just a coincidence that my sleeping self was trying to lock the front door while my waking-life front door was beeping at me?
Why would a pretty blonde girl think that I would throw my doors open to street strangers if I lived on the other side of some dreamy Jack-in-the-Box? What is that welcoming neighborhood like?

I haven’t seen a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in years—does the chain even exist anymore?

And — most important of all, my tummy alarm was coincidentally beeping to ask — were they still open at 2 a.m.?

•Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

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