Just shut the bedroom door.

I’ve been fighting a pretty bad case of bronchitis for the last six or seven weeks, meaning there hasn’t been a whole lot of sleep in Monicaland lately. 

For whatever reason, I was at a meeting the other day and I suddenly remembered this story. I could barely contain my smile and laughter, and silently was thankful that my mask was covering my face the whole time.

 

Because I’m sick, I’ve been staying away from family and friends as much as I can. My friends got together and I couldn’t join them. No one wants to be sick for seven weeks in a row, you know?

 

I’m homesick.

 

So I remembered this story. And as I’ve done before, I’m going to write it down before I go to bed and forget about it.

 

--

 

The thing that’s tricky about the place that I now live in is that my dog dishes are just outside of my bedroom door, in the hallway.

 

My dogs eat at night. I keep my bedroom door shut, and for the past two weeks, my dogs come and look at me, totally confused. I have to get up and open the bedroom door, keep it open for a few minutes while my kids chow down, and then I have to get up and close the door before we all go to bed.

 

Why do I have to do all of this, you might be wondering?

 

The story is long, but it’s worth telling. Plus, it’s hilarious.

 

--

 

I’m kind of weird.

 

There are a few personality quirks that I have that just are what they are. When I start a new relationship, if I think that relationship is going to go anywhere, there is a point pretty early on where I have to address my weirdness with the guy.

 

The first and most important rule of Monicaland and keeping me happy is this: Wherever I am, in whatever house or apartment I'm in, the bedroom door must be shut when I sleep.

 

It has to be shut and latched, but it doesn’t have to be locked. (I’m not that crazy.) It just has to be shut. 

If it’s not, I can’t sleep.

 

If my request can’t be honored in the relationship, then it’s a dealbreaker for me. The bedroom door being shut is that important to me.

 

And the reason why it’s important is the dumbest thing I’ve ever said out loud.

 

--

 

When I was little, way before I met the people who have now become my best friends, my brother and I shared a room. We had bunk beds. I slept on the bottom bunk and he slept on the top bunk.

 

If I had to guess, I was probably 5 or 6 when this happened. My brother is 3.5 years older than I am, so he’d be around 8 or 9 when this happened.

 

My brother always told me that there were alligators underneath my bed when we were little. And because I slept on the bottom bunk, the alligators could crawl up into my bed at night and eat me.

 

I’m five or six years old. At that age, when your older, wiser brother warns you about impending death right before bed, you tend to believe him.

I believed him, and one night, I asked him what I should do about these alligators underneath my bed.

 

He said that because alligators have short legs, they wouldn’t be able to climb into the top bunk, where he slept. He told me that I could always crawl up to the top bunk with him, where I’d be safe from the alligators.

 

Plus, he told me, he’d protect me if the alligators got up there.

 

I thought that was a pretty sweet deal when I was five or six. All I have to do is sleep higher up if I don’t want to be eaten at night? I thought it seemed like a simple solution.

 

So at night, after Mom and Dad turned off the light, I’d crawl up to the top bunk to sleep.

 

This went on for a while. I wish I remembered how long it was, but I don’t. Maybe a few weeks, a month, or a few months. By the way, every night before I crawled up to his bed, I checked under my bed for alligators.

 

I never found any.

 

One night, after the light switch was turned off, I told my brother that I was no longer going to crawl up to his bed. I told him that I’d been checking for alligators under my bed, and since I hadn’t found any, I thought it’d be safe to sleep in my own bed.

 

I told him that not only was I not going to sleep in the top bunk that night, but I was never going to do it again, because I thought he was lying to me.

 

Dude, I thought. There are no freaking alligators under my bed.

 

My brother came up with this response: Well, it’s technically true that there are no alligators underneath your bed right now. It’s true that when you go to sleep at night, there are no allegators underneath your bed.

 

But, he said, the reason that you don’t see them is because late at night, when Mom and Dad are sleeping and the house is dark, the alligators come into the house at night from the streets.

 

I don’t remember questioning my brother on exactly how the alligators entered the house. Through the front door? Did they ring the doorbell? Through a window?

 

I don’t know.

 

Anyway, he told me that after the alligators on the street came into our house, they would come to our bedroom, and the easiest place for them to hide was under my bed.

 

By the way, the night my brother and I had this conversation, our bedroom door was open.

 

My brother continued: And you know how the alligators get into our room, Monica?

 

They walk through the door!

 

THE OPEN BEDROOM DOOR.

 

I am probably six years old at that point, and I believe my brother. My six-year-old brain now knows that all this time, there was a simple answer for the problem in my head.

 

Alligators come into my room at night when I’m asleep because the bedroom door is open.

 

That night, I asked my brother what the solution was. I’m six, and I’m terrified. There are alligators out there, guys.

 

That’s terrifying. I was terrified.

 

This is all just so scary.

 

His solution? Well, why don’t we just shut the bedroom door? After all, alligators have short legs, no hands and they lack thumbs. Obviously, the alligators won’t be able to get in because they obviously can’t open the door handle.

 

So, there’s that, guys.

 

Now, as a grown woman with a college degree, a place of her own and a stable career and job, I honest to God can’t sleep with a bedroom door open because I’m terrified alligators are going to eat me in my sleep.

 

One time, in a relationship, I even yelled at a guy and caused a pretty big fight because that stupid bedroom door was open.

 

Sometimes, the solution to a problem is the simplest one available.

 

Just shut the bedroom door.

Alligators, guys.

 

Alligators.