I did something cool and different this Labor Day weekend. I just wish I was brave enough to appreciate it. Our friends Courtney and Joe generously invited us up to their country house in Michigan and after dinner and drinks, long after the sun went down, Joe turned off the lights and played some owl calls on a boombox, saying that sometimes the calls succeeded in luring owls over near the house.

I didn't think twice about this until the lights went off and I remembered that I'm afraid of the country. Just a little bit. Being out in a big space in the dark is just not for me (and that includes the beach--I always hated having to pretend like I had a good time sneaking around by the lake after dark.) It's just that somebody could creep up on you out of nowhere, unlike at my house in the city, where a lamppost is conveniently situated right outside our door, through which I can talk to people via an intercom.

But no matter: I had five friends around and Courtney and Joe have a bunch of axes and whatnot in the house just in case (it didn't occur to me to be scared of them going berserk. Maybe next time.) So once I told myself to stop being scared of the dark, I started being a little bit scared of the owl calls. They were spooky and sad and some sounded a bit angry, actually. After about fifteen minutes, nothing happened so Joe turned off the boombox. I was momentarily secretly relieved, but then he silently pointed to the tree next to the house: we had a customer.

Sure enough, we heard a call like one of the ones on the CD. I couldn't see the owl, but I heard him moving from place to place, from the tree to the roof to another tree, as he tried to find the owl that called him. I saw him flapping around at one point and realized that I am kind of scared of big birds, especially if they are confused. What if the call that had attracted our owl was one of the angry, aggressive male calls on the CD that Joe had queued up again? I don't know about you, but I am pretty attached to my hair--and the skin that it is attached to--and I didn't want to be the subject of some Gawker story about yuppies going to the country only to get scalped after taunting some poor birds. I am not ashamed to say that I stepped inside for a little bit.

The thing about being a scaredy-cat though is that eventually it gets boring. I convinced myself that the owl wouldn't get us and then returned outside, sure the owl would get bored and move on. But he didn't. He kept flying around the house trying to figure out who the HELL was trying to call him. At a certain point we agreed we felt bad for him. Maybe he was lonely, or had come a long distance, and was sad and confused about who had been calling his name. So Joe agreed to stop playing the CD and I was secretly relieved.

Until, then, two other owls showed up. So good for that first owl! But then I decided I was "tired" and had to "go to bed." But nobody gave a hoot about me.*

*This isn't true actually. We all went to bed pretty much at the same time. But we can all agree this was the only logical way to end this story.