I Thought I Was in Bed with the Taliban
September 11th was scary. You’d have to agree that life after that day, especially in the first year, was lived a little more cautiously than years past. Profiling and security checks of people from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East or those that appeared to be from that region were becoming the norm-not right-but the norm. It was on our minds and shoved in our faces by the media that we weren’t safe. As the military was searching rat holes and desert caves for insurgents, we watched CNN and MSNBC for the play by play. I think I got a little caught up in the irrational fear.
That fear played out one night when I thought I was in bed with a member of the Taliban.
My husband likes his sheets to be all willy nilly on the bed. I documented it here. So when I went into freak-out mode and Danny was sleeping with the sheets wrapped up around his head, it looked unmistakably like a turban. And in the dark of the night, his Italian features and dark goatee did lend itself to my irrational conclusion that the man in bed with me had possible Afghan descent. Yes, I thought he was the Taliban.
I hauled off and hit him.
Not just a girlie slap. A fist clenched, shoulder back, adrenaline pumping, arm torpedo launched right into his head. At the moment of contact and probably aided by the familiarity of his voice which was an unmistakable groan, I realized that I was not protecting my family, nor my country for that matter. I was sleep fighting and what I had done was punch my made in America, tried and true, good ‘ol Southern boy husband smack dab in his cranium.
Luckily he was asleep-that made two of us-and didn’t realize that I had just assaulted him. I laughed out loud sporadically for the rest of the night and beyond.
Next up: The Bloomberg Report Told Me To.
