Sunday column: Safety first

When it comes to safety, let’s just say that my husband takes it very seriously.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not complaining; being safe is important. And, it does mean a lot to me that he cares enough about me to always want to make sure I’m safe.
But, he can get carried away.
For as long as I’ve known him, Nick has had a nightly routine of making certain “checks” before he goes to bed. This consists of things like checking that the knob, deadbolt and chain are locked securely on both the front and back doors, checking that the oven and all burners on the stove are off, checking to ensure windows are closed and locked, that kind of thing.
These are all important safety measures no matter where you live or how many valuables your home contains.
And now, in light of the several tragic house fires that recently have happened in our area, Nick has added another check to his nightly routine.
Every night, and it’s usually pretty late because he is a night owl, my husband feels compelled to push the “test” button on our smoke detector. He wants to make sure it still works, he says. I was OK with this the first time, since we hadn’t checked the functionality of our smoke detector. It was a logical thing to do.
But, to check it every night? I don’t find that quite as logical. That sucker is loud, and it can be heard from outside the house. And no matter how much I beg, Nick refuses to not check it. It’s become a compulsion for him.
I can only imagine what our neighbors must think. Please accept this as an apology for my husband, who suffers from a slight case of safety OCD.
I wouldn’t be surprised if his next course of action is to draw out a fire evacuation plan for the two of us. While these are important and necessary for families, when there are two adults living in a small house, evacuation pretty much boils down to “Get out however you can.”
On the road, Nick’s safety mechanisms are just as active. He never, ever speeds and always volunteers to be the designated driver.
Anytime I go somewhere without him, he checks to make sure my cell phone is fully charged and accessible in case I need to call him. And before I walk out the door, it’s always, “I love you. Be safe.”
As amusing as it sometimes is, though, I find Nick’s overactive safety awareness reassuring. Maybe it’s because as a child, I had my own fears of what could happen once the sun went down.
For whatever reason, I went through a period during my childhood in which I was terrified to go to bed at night. I’d lie awake in my bed with my overactive imagination running wild about all the things that could happen during the night. I had one particular fear that the bathroom faucets would be left running all night and the upstairs of our house — where my bedroom was — would flood. Rational? Of course not. But it was a very real fear to me at that time. It was so real that I’d get up periodically to make sure the faucets were tightly turned off.
I’m the one who forced my family to have fire drills and develop a fire evacuation plan. I even begged my parents for a little rope ladder to put in my upstairs room so I could climb out in case of emergency.
Eventually, I suppose I outgrew my irrational nighttime fears. Or at least, I learned to suppress them to the point that I could sleep at night. Living alone for many years, a few times in big cities, really tested my ability to keep my imagination in check. Because, if you let yourself, you can dream up all kinds of scary things that can happen while you’re alone at night. Especially if you’re a young single girl working the night shift at a newspaper.
So maybe it was kismet that I would fall in love with and marry a man with an eye for safety. At least if I know he’s worrying about all those scary things, then I can put my mind at ease.