Ben has been making his way into our room several times per night lately and it seems like a dangerous proposition. When something startles me at 3am I don't just slowly lift my head to see what's going on; I sorta kick my legs and feet forward to thrust my torso into an upright position. But if Ben happens to be right where me feet are, well, you can imagine the potential consequence. It really scares the heck out of me, like one day he's gonna get an accidental smack in the nose with the bony feet of someone 5 times his size.

Every once in a while I hear a little noise right next to my face and when I open my eyes it is Ben with his beak right next to my cheek. Again, my instinct is to throw a punch at a figure staring me right in the face as I wake up without warning and the inability to focus on what/who that entity might be. What if it was a burglar or an alien trying to abduct me or a customer who really wants tech support at that very moment? Any of these would require a knuckle sandwich but not my Ben.

I think I need to design a Ben Detection System (BDS) which alerts me to his impending presence and awakens me as he passes through the door from his room. I could be awake enough to make the right decisions. And perhaps another, My Room Threshold Detector (MRTD) so I could perform an immediate If/then/else to determine if I should grab my gun or make space in my bed. Perhaps something like this:

sleep
while(nighttime) do
 if(MRTD)
   wakupandswing if(!BDS)
 end
end
wakeup

Obviously this is just a snippet of Ruby code (via Joe), I'd need to define certain variables and other routines but you get the idea. If only I could implant this into my brain directly. Perhaps I just need to change Ben's PJ's to consist of full Hockey Goalie gear.