Catherine Palmer

I'm a city person.

I wasn't born in the city.

I moved to the city, to the south side of Pittsburgh, as an adult.

Now, city people expect a couple things.

light and noise.

And we get pretty nervous if it gets too dark or too quiet.

Now, we're the only people in our family that live in the city.

My husband's four sisters live in dark, quiet places.

And the darkest, quietest home is my sister-in-law, who runs a hostel with her husband and her two little girls.

in the middle of nowhere.

Now, this kind of nowhere is where there's no cell service, no internet access.

And I found myself there one night after having been in a meeting in Philly, which is a very nice, noisy, bright city.

And we had a lovely dinner, and we were waiting to check in the next hostel guest, and it was getting later.

And that was a problem because my niece was going to have a performance that night, and somebody was going to have to stay behind.

So I volunteered.

What could go wrong?

I would be in a very dark,

quiet place with no cell reception letting strangers into the house.

Perfect.

So I waved them off and I went to the living room to read a book.