startled...

startledpast participle, past tense of star·tle

Verb:

Cause (a person or animal) to feel sudden shock or alarm: "a sudden sound in the doorway startled him".

Ok, so usually our posts are pretty serious, but today we are gonna stray from the norm a bit. I just couldn't resist telling this story. 

We had been in Uganda maybe 48 hours or so. All of us were jet lagged and had very odd sleeping schedules. I (Jeremy) woke up around 3 in the morning, couldn't sleep so I went into our living room to work on our prayer partner list. Now, I should explain that we are currently sharing a house with Robert and Maridith Lane. We are upstairs and they are downstairs in the basement. Since It was so early I didn't want to turn on all the lights and wake someone up, so i was sitting in the living room working with just the light of my laptop. 

I heard noise downstairs like someone was stirring. It seems like I wasn't the only one struggling with sleeping. I heard Robert coming up the stairs and I decided to have a little fun. I shut my laptop (which was the only source of light in the room) I was now sitting in the dark. I realized I had my ridiculously bright flashlight at my side, I picked it up...and as Robert casually strolled into the living room I shone the flashlight in his face and said "WHAT R U DOIN!!!" (I am literally cracking up right now recalling how it went down) He jumped up, eyes flew out of his head, look of horror on his face like he had just stumbled into a scene from a horror movie. My only regret is not getting any of it recorded for posterity. It literally took me 24 hours to stop laughing. Thankfully, it took Robert only a fraction of that to forgive me.