Sleeping Results in a Felony Arrest?

My husband is a deep sleeper. Not a he won't hear you knocking on the door deep sleeper. More like a he won't feel you knocking on his head deep sleeper. For two years he worked only night shifts. He had no problem sleeping during the day- even during the summer with 6 kids running through the house.

This talent is great for crazy ED shift changes, but it isn't without pitfalls. Many of them quite funny...

Growing up, my family had a very open, welcome home. I remember dropping by one day (I had a key even though I hadn't lived there for many years) and searching the house for family. I found my brother's friend eating cereal while watching TV. Turns out my brother was staying after school, sister was at a friend's house, Dad was at a class and Mom was at the store. Wasn't until the next day that it hit me as odd that my brother's friend was hanging out alone in my parent's house.

So it should come as no big shock that when my husband and I were mere boyfriend/girlfriend he had a key to their house while we were out of town. Why would I, in the midst of a life long love affair, be out of town? My father had a slight midlife crisis realizing (correctly) this might be his last summer with all single children and took us all to every child's dream vacation: Disneyland. Being 18 at the time, he was only 10 years too late for me.

So, due to pre-cell phone days, Peter and I would spend our evenings on the phone arguing over who missed whom the most, and during the days he would sometimes stop by the house between his two jobs and crash. Which is exactly what happened one afternoon.

As my boyfriend snored on the downstairs couch, two young neighborhood girls walked by and noticed his car. (Now this car was not the fancy Audi he drives today. It was the rottenness, oldest piece of junk to hit the road. Whenever we drove over the Point of the Mountain, we had to push the car to the limits of its speed before the incline so that the car wouldn't come to a complete stop before the top.) Ever observant, the girls realized it wasn't our family's car. Besides, they knew we were out of town. Strange & junky car and family on vacation warranted further inspection, and that is when they noticed the downstairs window was broken (for several weeks, but they'd failed to have cause for inspection earlier than now).

Doing what all responsible people should when you see a strange & junky car, vacationing neighbor's house, and broken basement window: they called the police. In no time at all the situation included a strange & junky car, vacationing family, broken basement window, and police on the door step with car lights flaring and knocking loudly. Naturally a crowd quickly gathered.

The police looked into the broken basement window pane to see a man sacked out on the couch. "Yes officers, we're sure the whole family is gone." Now there is a strange & junky car, vacationing family, broken basement window, police knocking on the door, curious gathered crowd and a man sacked out on the couch who is REFUSING to respond to the knocks on the door (which are quickly escalating to pounds).

Meanwhile, Peter slept through it all.

Finally, a few too many minutes later and just before the police decided to break down the door, Peter woke to the sound. He staggered, half awake, to the door and opened it to a lawn full of police and neighbors. Drawn guns and public humiliation have a quick way of waking a person up, even the deepest of sleepers. It is amazing no pants were peed.

Those poor girls, who really had done the right thing, recognized my boyfriend immediately and tried to explain their honest mistake to the adrenalin pumped officers while Peter, hands in the air, desperately professed his innocence. "Here are the keys they gave me. Here's the hotel where they're staying. Here are pictures of me with their daughter. That window has been broken as long as I've known this family!! Please don't arrest me; please don't shoot me; I'm promise I'm not robbing them, I'm just taking a nap!!" Finally convinced he was more of a lovesick, excessively deep sleeper than psycho house robber, the police let him get back to his nap.

That evening I had one of the more entertaining phone calls in my life. Like I said, deep sleeping can result in some rather humorous pitfalls.

P.S. I think the trait is inherited---->