I woke up this morning at 1:50 a.m. hearing “patta, pat, pat, patta, pat, patta, pat” in the back yard, and the sound of running water. I laid there for a few minutes, but couldn’t go back to sleep. I got out of bed and peeked out the window, and saw it was pouring rain. I figured out the sound was a plastic frozen dinner plate that Holly had carried outside and water was dripping off the porch roof onto it.
I went back to bed, and tried to go back to sleep. But I kept hearing that “patta, pat, pat” and it was really beginning to annoy me. I couldn’t ignore it, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I got out of bed and went outside in the cold and wet to get that plate. As soon as I opened the sliding door, I discovered the sprinklers were on. It was pouring down rain, and the sprinklers were running! Apparently the rain sensor was drowned or something. I grabbed that plastic plate, turned off the sprinklers, locked up, dried off my feet, and went back to bed.
I finally dropped back to sleep at about 4 a.m.
You were very brave to get up and go outside. I would probably be to chicken and leave it outside until the morning.
It really stinks when you can’t go back to sleep after waking up!
An apartment we lived in soon after we were married had a rain spout with a tin bottom that went “Patta-pat-pat” every time it rained, and in Santa Cruz in the winter that was pretty often.
I finally had to glue a sponge in the bottom to muffle the sound. It would erode in a week or two, so I had to continually replace it.
There are few things worse than trying to sleep over a Patta-pat-pat!
Daryl, that would imply you had a LOT of rain in Santa Cruz, to erode a sponge in one or two weeks. Wow!
The drops would fall on the exact same spot time after time, so it didn’t take too long. It was also a rainy winter.