Scardey Cat

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." -Psalm 23:4

Amy and I live half a block away from a lovely park called the Waldpark (translated: forest park). Although it is called a "park" it is actually more of a forest with paths through it, and it has been fun to go exploring to see where they lead. The kicker is, when Amy and I come home from somewhere, we have to walk through the Waldpark to get from the tram stop to our apartment. It is a wonderful walk during the day, but say, for example, we get home after dark...we still have to walk through the Waldpark (which is only dimly lit...enough to make scary shadows). I have never really been afraid of the dark, I mean, I got a little anxious when my mom would ask me to take out the trash after dark (keep in mind our trash cans at home are in the dim, back alley, far enough away that noone would hear my screams)...but I'm sure that's a common fear. Anyway, last night we were returning from a weekend retreat and our train got in well past dark, so we found ourselves walking through the Waldpark...a situation we were both dreading but neither wanted to admit to.

So here's how it started: we got off the tram at Lene Glatzer Strasse, our usual stop, but because of the late hour, our exhaustion from the retreat, and the fact that we quickly realized we needed to walk through the scary forest park, things started seeming creepy. We crossed the street and were joking about a past story of one of the missionaries here who got chased by a huge dog after dark in this same park when I glanced up and actually SAW a dog in our path! Ok so it turned out to be a bench, and after mentioning my silly mistake found out that Amy had thought the same thing. We were soon engulfed by the darkness and looming shadows and I was trying to play off like it was no big deal, but secretly was completely glad that Amy was with me... she could save me from large attacking dogs. Well things were going fine until, while I was looking down to watch where I was stepping, Amy gasped sharply, put her hand on my shoulder and jumped behind me, putting me into an immediate state of panic. I quickly looked up to see what caused Amy this intense reaction and noticed the silouettes of two small cats, running across the road about 50 meters ahead of us. My panic turned to disbelief that my fairly level-headed roommate, HIM partner, and so thought "protector" was scared so easily by a pair of small, probably cute (it was dark...I couldn't tell) domestic pets! My heart was now beating 3 times it's normal rate and sheesh it turned out to not be anything worth jumping about in the first place. Man-!

Well we laughed about that, especially Amy, who totally tried to play it off like it wasn't a big deal (I'll be sure to remind her of how big a deal it "wasn't" occasionally). But not even a couple minutes later we heard this scraping sound behind us...and it was slowly getting louder, and closer...

Turning around we couldn't see anything, but we realized it was only a skateboarder. But in this case knowing didn't make it any better! Skateboards make a horrible sound when you're walking through a dark forest and already kinda freaked out, let me tell you. Needless to say, when it did FINALLY pass us it was a girl skateboarder...man did we feel stupid getting so creeped out by a harmless GIRL. I mean, if it was at least a boy we could have felt a little more at ease knowing our fear wasn't in vain. Pah.

So of course you know the end of this story, because I'm writing this now. We did eventually make it through the Waldpark despite all the odds stacked against us, and I feel like a much more rounded person after experiencing all that trauma. Oh and for the record, Amy loves cats. :)