You know when you get up in the night to investigate a strange occurrence …

[Nailest]

Do you stop to put on your dressing gown and slippers?

Because people in films and books do, and I think this must be where I’m going wrong. Are my intruders/ghosts/assorted random nightly visitors staying away because they know I will appear incorrectly dressed?

"Fancy haunting no.32 tonight Cromwell?"
"Good lord man, NO! I do not wish to see her minge!"
"Bloody puritan."

If horror films have taught me anything, it is always to put at least a pair of trainers and a hoody on (let's assume you're already wearing trousers of some kind) before investigating strange noises in the middle of the night.

Nothing worse than being chased through the woods by a murderer in bare feet and a skimpy negligee.

Nothing worse than being chased through the woods by a murderer in bare feet and a skimpy negligee.

Shitting sentence construction fail!

Should read 'Nothing worse than being chased through the woods by a murderer, in bare feet and a skimpy negligee.'

A murderer in bare feet and a skimpy negligee would presumably be fairly easy to get away from.

@AffIt now you’ve thrown me into a quandary. Do I invest in new slippers and a dressing gown, or a pair of trainers I can run through the woods in?

All the horror movies I've watched the men wear boxers and women tiny vests and shorts when investigation bumps in the night.
Never a dressing gown in sight!

I put on house Uggs and a kimono even if I think my nine year old is being abducted by vampires, as I live on what is essentially a building site with missing windows and strange sharp things sticking out of the floorboards.

[quote Nailest]@AffIt now you’ve thrown me into a quandary. Do I invest in new slippers and a dressing gown, or a pair of trainers I can run through the woods in?[/quote]
I, personally, would go for the trainers.

Substance over style.

@KylieCharlene

All the horror movies I've watched the men wear boxers and women tiny vests and shorts when investigation bumps in the night. Never a dressing gown in sight!

You’re obviously watching a less inferior genre of films. All my heroines ensure they have maximum coverage .

The problem with trainers though is they take time to put on and lace up. I don’t want my uninvited guests having a time advantage over me.

I don't own slippers - always go barefoot at home. I would put my dressing on though, unless it was too warm to need it.

I obviously meant just inferior, don’t know how that “less” got into my post.

@Nailest

The problem with trainers though is they take time to put on and lace up. I don’t want my uninvited guests having a time advantage over me.

Also, without socks which would add to your time, you would get blisters running. Maybe some Skechers would be the best of both worlds.

I find the women always wear long white nightwear that’s very floaty.

I own nothing like this so presumably am safe from mad axe murderers breaking in.

I don’t even own a dressing gown, no, just get out of bed as I am and go for a wander. I’d have to turn the light on and wake my husband up to put clothes on, or do it in the pitch black and fall over.

Plus if someone is in the flat being chased by a naked me will do the trick and they’d be gone pretty sharpish to project their corneas.

Now this has actually happened to me - at my DH's parents' house (out of town, a few neighbours, fairly isolated but not in the middle of nowhere), his parents went out for the night, we were left on our own with the dog and a cordless phone (this should give you an idea of how long ago this was - no mobiles). All tucked up in bed, we heard the 'click' of the electrical system, then the dog started going mad, barking like nobody's business. We freaked out, absolutely sure there was someone in the house. My DH (in a T-shirt and boxers) leapt out of bed, grabbed his penknife from the desk, and started to hotfoot it out through the window (ground floor). I followed suit, and wearing only a skimpy nightdress, decided it would be a good idea to put my trainers on prior to clambering out. "THERE'S NO TIME FOR SHOES, GET OUT! AND GRAB THAT TO DEFEND YOURSELF!".
This is how I found myself outside in the street, in a négligée, with only one shoe on, a cordless phone in one hand, and an empty plastic perrier bottle in the other.
I learnt two things that night: my DH is of no use in such a situation, and fleeing a potential axe-murderer whilst only semi-dressed, with a sub-standard defense weapon and a good memory for phone numbers makes for a fine story.
Oh, and there was no intruder.

If horror films have taught me anything,

don't investigate! Hide, call the police or run. And if you do find a wrong un don't just knock them off their feet make sure they are dead!

I'll never forget the sight of my dad creeping across the landing in his stripey cotton jim-jams wielding a bloody great brass warming pan (was hung on wall as antique decor) hunting a noisy intruder.

In the end the intruder turned out to be my hamster, which had escaped his downstairs cage, made his way all the way upstairs and up into my mum's tights drawer at the top of their chest of drawers ...

Nothing to contribute, as not witty enough, but it's great to see a thread that takes me back to when I first joined MN. Not bitchy or trolly, just brilliantly clever and bloody hilarious!

I sleep with a cricket bat next to my bed.

But I like to think that my make up free face and bed hair will render that unnecessary and an intruder would die of stunned shock.

Horror films have taught me that statistically it is the people who investigate bumps in the night who are more likely to to die horribly than the ones who shrug and pull the cover over their head. But I never sleep naked anyway, just in case

Actually I recalled an actual incident when I was a young un and in a caravan in France. I woke to find an actual intruder! Fucker had just walked in and started picking up stuff.

I screamed like a banshee, he ran with our stuff and I went in pursuit in my knickers and a t shirt. Over patio chairs, under washing lines and grabbed him off the getaway bike he’d brought.

He legged it on foot, leaving the bike and our make up bags behind.

I absolutely have to put my glasses on when getting up to investigate weird goings on
(Velma Dinkley is my hero) and I wear Birkenstock clogs in the house so I put them on.

I put my dressing gown on cos it’s cold in the house

I am not sure if it’s worse to be chased through the house by an intruder or being chilly to be honest

Slippers and dressing gown for n the past.
Now we have ring doorbell I’d just remind them they are being videoed.
It’s really hard to access our back garden, and we have a ninja black Labrador who never barks until she realised she doesn’t know you. Then she does a pretty good impression of a dog twice her size.

You've reminded me of the time I went on holiday with some friends and in the middle of the night we decided we had heard a noise and it was clearly an intruder. One of my friends decided to grab a weapon so ran to the kitchen. The place where the knives live... and came back with a whisk.

Turns out it was a deckchair bumping the glass door in the wind, which is a good thing as I'm not sure a thorough whisking would have deterred an actual intruder!