Things that go thump in the night

One of us is a light sleeper; the other sleeps like a near-dead log.  So when something woke TPP, the thud of something falling, he got up to investigate.  Otherwise the house was silent such that you could hear the water dribbling from the garden fountain.  Now the house has two cats who sometimes become involved in nocturnal activities, but both of these suspects were curled in their usual places exuding their well-practiced "who, me?" reactions.  Still once you're up, you might as well check things out, and nothing was apparently amiss.  In the morning, Mrs. Phactor wanted to know why someone was wandering around the house at night.  Her reaction to the statement that something went thud was a sort of "sure", and we preceded to have toast and coffee and read our Sunday papers (we still like papers).  As we moved into the mornings activities, Mrs. Phactor chanced to open a little pantry in the back of the kitchen, a little architectural wonder, as in you wonder what they were thinking there a hundred years ago, and discovered a mess.  A can, not even an ancient can, of fruit had exploded, blown it's top off, disgorged its contents, and dislodged some other canned goods in the process.  Their fall must have gone thud.  Hard to believe so much juice and so much fruit could come from one little can, but it did explode; gravity did the rest.  The cleanup was both necessary and long overdue.  Still TPP derived a bit of gratification that he heard what he heard.