The rapture made me miss the truly terrifying part of this story

On Sunday afternoon, I ran an errand and came home and fed Angelfish. Meanwhile, the boys were in the back yard planting our vegetable garden.  Clownfish came in while I was feeding the baby and asked me to come out and see their handiwork.  I agreed to stop out when I was done. 

A little while later, around 3:00, I went outside.  No Bullshark. No Clownfish.  The cars were all present and accounted for, Bullshark's cell phone and wallet were inside and Clownfish's bicycle was in the garage.  Hmm, I thought, maybe they went for a walk?

Around 4:00 I tweeted that I still hadn't seen them.  Several folks suggested that the rapture had come a little late, and that I was left behind.  This made little sense because the baby was still here and there was no sign of smoking clothing.  Of course, a friend explained, the Angelfish was probably plotting murder at all times. Evil baby. Explained a lot.

Except, you know, where the f**k the boys really were.

I began to worry.  I checked with my neighbors on either side.  No sign of them.  I left a note on our front door, in case they returned, and drove around the neighborhood, as far over as the park, and around all the streets that they might walk.  Asked a few folks who were out mowing lawns, etc.  No sign of them.  I rang the bell of the elderly neighbors who live behind us.  No answer, but their car was in the driveway.  I waited to no avail and then returned home.  The whole while I felt foolish, especially when I approached people. 

"Excuse me, but I seem to have misplaced my family...."


I waited some more.  Then, before I gave into my paranoid delusions and called 911 reporting rapture-related disappearances, I decided to approach the elderly neighbors' house from the back door.  And there I found my boys.  They had stopped over to contribute some excess zucchini plants to the neighors' vegetable garden when they were shanghaied into touring their basement to see the old man's homemade puppets.* 

I understood perfectly why my husband was unable to escape for two hours, and why he was unable to even call, when the old man insisted on giving me the tour.  He studiously ignored the fact that Angelfish was cranky and that it was dinnertime.  I managed to convince him I had to leave after 20 minutes or so.**

Anyway, my family wasn't raptured.***     


* This is, upon retelling, the point where the story gets truly terrifying.  Me, I was so relieved to see the boys, it did not occur to me to worry that, as one of my co-workers suggested, the puppets may be made from, say, the skins of his victims. 
** He's a nice, lonely old man with lots of talent. We promised to come back and see the full tour of the wooden trains and painted stone people that he made on another day.
*** As Catholics, we didn't expect to be.