Last night, JP and I were sitting at the table playing Monopoly (Day Four of the advent calendar: Family Game Night) when we looked up and saw the Beastie spying on us. He does this frequently — lurks at the top of the spiral staircase, watching us. It’s creepy, and our friends never believe that he actually does this. To prove them wrong, I snapped a quick photo with my always-handy camera.

I was looking at the screen, cursing the fact that the flash always makes his eyes glow a weird blue color when a lightbulb in the kitchen burned out with a loud pop. It was so loud that the Beastie (who is skittish even when there aren’t unexpected loud noises) jumped. Unfortunately, instead of jumping straight in the air, he jumped FORWARD. He flew off the staircase and landed on his side on the hardwood floor.

Ever since we moved in, I’ve waiting with dread for that day. The Beastie is not the most coordinated or sure-footed dog, and I think this fall was only a matter of time. The good news is, he’s absolutely fine. He was shaken at first, but within seconds he was back to normal and running around like a lunatic. I think I was more traumatized than he was. But after a few hours, I chalked it up to a freak accident, and told myself to stop worrying. Like I said, I’ve been waiting for this to happen. Now that it has, I can rest easy. What are the chances it would happen twice?

This morning, he fell off again.

He was chasing JP up the stairs (because he always wants to be the first one up/down the stairs) when he tripped and tumbled right off, in almost exactly the same spot. Once again, he landed on his side and was stunned for only a second before getting up and running around. Of course, that didn’t stop me from dissolving into gut-wrenching sobs, because Oh. My. God. think about all the bad things that COULD have happened! And is this going to be a daily event from now on? I cannot live like that: with a daily dose of my heart leaping into my throat.

On the upside, neither fall affected him in the least. Not only is he unhurt, he seems totally unafraid as he blithely runs up and down the stairs a million times a day. We always joke that he should get a job and pull his weight around here — maybe we really should look into a Hollywood stuntdog career.