Are you afraid of the dark?

I know this will sound incredibly silly and completely unnatural (with the nocturnal thing and all) but I think my cat may be afraid of the dark. No, seriously! He chases me around everywhere so when I go to the basement to do laundry he follows me there too. And he seems to like it down there, seems to have a desire to remain lying on the cold cement...but as soon as I walk up those stairs and turn off the light, he bolts up the stairs like a "cat out of hell" ...he, he...sorry had to say it. But yeah, I dunno...it's weird. And he always sleeps right outside our door during the night because I'm a really mean mom who won't let him stay in our bedroom.

And I think it could be a case of "like mother, like son" as I realized last night:

Since moving to Acton, it seems we lose power quite often, almost every time we have heavy snow or rain. So, of course, being the big wuss that I am, I secretly freak out on the inside about the fact that we have absolutely NO flashlights in the house with functioning batteries. And last night as the lights were flickering, I knew I still had to go to the basement to get laundry out of the dryer. I cursed the flashlights (all 3 of them) and went to light a candle that I could carry around with me in the event of possible complete power failure. And I go downstairs carrying the flaming candle... and I fold my 2 loads of laundry... and then I attempt to carry the heavy laundry basket full of flammable linens and cottons and wools, etc. in one arm back up the stairs while clumsily carrying the ignition source in the other hand....all of this with feline under foot. Hmmm...fear really has a tendency to make one quite irrational, doesn't it?

And then I went to bed safe and sound with my already snoring heavily (kinda like a power saw) husband and listened to the pouring rain and the beeping smoke detector signifying that the power really did finally go out.