So I go to bed tonight, feeling rather sleepy. I've got absent thoughts on my mind but nothing of much consequence. I look at the clock when I decide its time to retire and it spoke back to me that it was 12:48 AM. That seems like a reasonable time to call it a night.

So I'm lying in bed, just thinking casual thoughts. To think of anything more than that would just keep me awake, and that is not my goal on this evening.

But I keep hearing this sound. And I'm not going to pretend that it sounded like anything else. It sounded like someone's boot crunching in the show.

At one point I hear this loud thump, and it really seems like the foundations of my house have been rumbled, by something strong, and deep and powerful. One of those moments like when a garbage truck rumbles down the street, or a snow plow pushes a big load of snow into a pile formed on something hard and concrete.

This sound just keeps going on and on. A few crunches of snow, or so it seems and then silence again. Crunch, crunch, crunch and then nothing. In my paranoia and my anxiety I become convinced that someone is stumbling around the front of my house, trying to decide the best way to break in.

Do I get up and put my fears to rest? Do I dismiss the thoughts as foolish and try to get to sleep?

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Finally I can no longer take it. Plus I had to go to the bathroom now. I get up. I go downstairs to the living room window and look for this snow crunching assailant that has ruined my night's sleep.

The time on the clock at my disposal reads a cool, crisp 1:21 AM. At first I see nothing, but that's because I'm looking in the bushes in front of my house, and there was never anyone there.

No, what has kept me up for going on towards 45 minutes now, is some ASSHOLE shovelling his bloody, god damn driveway at 1:30 in the blasted morning!!!