We kind of live out in the country in a nice little neighborhood. It seems like a safe enough place. We had a bit of a scare the summer after we moved in, but since then everything have been good.... until today.
I came home for lunch as I do most days. Today there was a cop car sitting in front of our house. He was so in-front of our house that I couldn't even pull in the drive. He was talking to two guys in a red civic parked on the curb in front of the house next door. I parked my car on the street just down from them and walked in. I didn't know what was going on.
I kept watch out the window. The cop talked to them for a long time. I wanted to know what he was saying, but I couldn't hear. Probably after 20 minutes he had the driver out of the car and he was checking in the trunk. Shortly after that they were both handcuffed and sitting on the curb. Three more police cars showed up. My lunch hour was up... but I wasn't going anywhere.
I finally had the bright idea to turn on the police scanner on the app on my iPod. It wasn't working. I found an online live stream of our local police scanner, which is pretty cool by the way. I heard them naming addresses on my street and talking about damage. For some reason it hadn't occurred to me before but these guys had just been breaking into houses right next to us. When the cops arrived they were in the process of stealing stuff from the house right next to us.
As the reality set in I started to get that weird feeling in my stomach. I'm not sure why they didn't hit our house. Maybe they were going to. Maybe if the cop hadn't come they would have been in my house when I came home for lunch. Who knows. It is not a good feeling to think of somebody coming into your home and taking your stuff. It makes you feel so vulnerable and sort of dirty.
We have two dogs. One is timid, one is ferocious... they both are pretty tiny. They aren't going to stop a criminal, but they will make a lot of noise. Divot likes to sit in my desk chair and look out the front window. He is always keeping watch. The would-be thieves maybe saw him sitting there today and decided to pass on by. Even though we have little Divot to protect the house I would still feel more comfortable with a more legitimate form of security. Looks like we will be getting a system installed with all the bells and whistles sooner than later.
