I Saw a UFO and Nobody Believed Me...

I can imagine the terror of ACTUALLY believing that you have been abducted and probed by a UFO. The brain is an amazing, misunderstood, unreliable thing. I know this because I have the most ridiculous dreams, yet at the time I believe they are totally and utterly for real.

For example, the other night I was house-sitting some random shack in some central city (who knows where), when I decided to put the rubbish out the front sliding door. The sliding door, naturally, backed onto a main street, just as a shop entrance might do. Hoardes of people walked past. Sitting at the traffic lights talking on a mobile phone was a young Chinese man (yes, I knew he was Chinese and not Thai/Korean/Malaysian) and I lip-read him perfectly through his car window. He said to his friend on the phone, "I see this chick having trouble with a dodgy sliding door. Let's break in tonight and rob the place!"

I panicked. I called my three friends - the ones I was house-sitting for and who I have never met in my life - and said, "You guys are going to be robbed tonight! (Does a 'Chinese' robber make me a racist, BTW?)

So the friends rushed home and spent the night with me inside that inner city shack, which had no furniture and nothing to steal, but did have one double mattress, which we all hid under (for lack of a bed). So there I was, legs poking out from under a very suspicious looking mattress with three random people who I've never met, thinking (at the time) how perfectly normal this whole thing was.

Then, at two in the morning came the THUMP... THUMP THUMP... THUMP! as the Chinese man broke his way in through the sliding door. I'll never forget that thump. It was freaky. In the darkness I peeked out from beneath our quivering mattress, where my friends were all saying "Shhhh!" and saw that the robber pointed a shotgun* at the foam. I remember feeling quite lucky we had the mattress to protect us.

Then I woke up, strangely chilled. By the next morning I was laughing about it.

Last night, apparently, I was snoring. But whenever I'm poked in the ribs for snoring I always insist I wasn't even asleep. According to my own memory, I was just lying in bed minding my own business. But my bed mate insists I was ASLEEP and SNORING.

Not only that, but my snuffling was to blame for his lucid dream about the little alien who appeared at the window and chased Flicker around the house in a murderous kind of way. Dan did what any normal person would do in such an event - he methodically went around the house and locked all the windows and doors. But when he got to the laundry door he saw it was ajar. Next moment, Flicker sticks his paw inside, frantically desperate to get in. With Hannah to look after, Dan kicked his foot out of the way saying, "Sorry Flicker!" and locked himself inside with the baby. Last thing he saw, Flicker was sprinting around the house trying to outrun the evil alien, who was making strange sounds, suspiciously similar to snoring.

Dan woke up with a guilt complex. He sacrificed his own border collie for the good of the humans. He took the leftover toast crusts from my plate and offered them to the dog.

I said, "Hey, he's meant to be on a diet!" (Which he is.)

Dan said, "I know, but I feel so sorry for him."

I don't hold high hopes for this so-called dog diet.

*It is possible to watch too much of The Sopranos.