When my brother was a wee tyke, he had a pair of Superman pajamas.  But they weren’t just *any* pair of pajamas:  they were glow-in-the-dark Superman pajamas.  The “S” was outlined with that gummy, embossed glow-in-the-dark stuff used in the 80′s.  He was very Super when he wore them:  our house was always very safe from the nefarious bad guys patrolling the corn fields of southern Idaho.

And while most of the time we found great comfort in seeing the all-glowing “S” around the house, sometimes it could strike fear into the hearts of the good guys as well as the bad guys.  One weekend my aunt was house/animal-sitting and for some reason my folks felt like throwing in a little bonus to the mayhem:  two kids.  We had fun, romping around the house, running around to all the rooms to play on the intercom system, laughing at our aunt as she would try and convince us that tofu hotdogs tasted just like real hotdogs (oh, that’s still a good chuckle).

Nighttime was different:  new bed, new room, new house.  It made for some light sleeping, at least for my bro and I:  my aunt was zonked out – I can’t imagine why.  For some unknown reason, my brother was awake in the night:  perhaps he couldn’t sleep, perhaps he was bored, perhaps he was on Nighttime Superhero Duty.  He wandered into my aunt’s room to make sure the peace was maintained, him and the all-seeing “S” which my parents had neglected to tell our caretake about.  My aunt woke up to an “S” floating mysteriously bobbing towards her in the dark.  Needless to say, she did not feel the comfort that most people feel when they know a superhero is patrolling their streets . . . or rooms, as the case may be.
Hearing this as a kid, I laughed.  I still laugh today:  how silly to be surprised by a glowing “S” or waking up to a kid being in your room.  That was until last night.

JJ has a pair of Spiderman pajamas, a gift from his Nana and Papa.  Not only does it have a Spiderman insignia, but it has mesh webbing connecting the arms to the body of the top.  Last night, after running around with the Hubby’s family until late, he came home and was promptly put into his pajamas and sent off to bed (in theory:  really, it took a few words of ‘encouragment’ to remind him that Sleepy Time, for JJs and for Spidermen, means being cribward bound).  Apparently his Spidey senses alerted him to some disturbance of peace in the wee hours of the morning.

You know when it’s hard to fall asleep and then you hit that superduper happy deep sleep place, a place where you need to stay for an extended period of time or if you wake up you’ll be superduper cranky?  I hit that place about 2:03 am.  At 2:05 my Mama Senses woke me up as I felt that something wasn’t right in the Force.  I jerked out of my dream, opened my eyes, and one inch from my face was a face that simply said, “Da.”  Which probably roughly translates as, “Good citizen, is everything alright here?”  My response:  “AHHH!”

I put Spidey JJ back into the crib:  he went willingly, knowing that all was alright.  Myself, well, I ended up letting the dog out to pee, letting the cat outside, putting water in the dog bowl because the dog looked so pathetic when he was pawing at an empty bowl, using the bathroom, going back to bed to a mumbling husband, dozing until hearing cat yowlings half an hour later, going outside to try and save my cat from being pummeled by the neighborhood yowlers, not finding the cat, tripping over the dog, and going back to bed to a husband who couldn’t figure out why the cat was outside.

This morning, he remembered the part about the cat; he didn’t remember about our nighttime visitor.  I had forgotten about the cat, but remembered the visitor due to the heartattack I experienced.  So with our memory loss, maybe there was something nefarious afoot:  good thing we’ve got Spiderman watching over us, that is, if he doesn’t scare us into a premature death first.

Daily Drivel, JJ Jawings