- Joined
- Oct 18, 2001
- Messages
- 20,978
Setting:
My home = halfway down a quiet street in a quiet suburb
Me = with scouts playing ultimate frisbee...
Wife = teaching a short class on sewing at church
Kids = at home with Mother-in-law, a short and slight, but wirey lady...great babysitter (does the dishes!)
Dog = resting but at attention (as always)
Front Door = unlocked, but "secured" with a door-catcher
Blissfully my wife and I return home from our late evening assignments (separately, but around the same time)...kids are already in bed, but not asleep. So we tend to them, thank Grandma for helping out (wife takes her home)...we take care of a few household things and settle in to watch American Idol recorded on the DVR.
Then my wife says...(and no matter how patient, how calm, how understanding, how prepared, how trained you are...you never like hearing these words)...
"I didn't want you to be concerned or upset...so I waited until now...I need to tell you about something that happened tonight"
By this time, my face is read and my fingernails are making little indentations to the inside of my palms...but I am waiting to hear what she has to say.
She relates the following story:
Around 8:15 PM my MIL hears the handle on the front door start to turn. The door opens far enough to begin to engage the door-catcher.
At this point, she is not concerned because that is what would happen if I or my wife had returned home. Yes, it would have been a little early (we arrived around 8:45) but not entirely unlikely.
Jessie explodes from her resting spot in the living room and lights up the foyer with a caucophony of heavy, hard and relentless barking - not "oh look a bird" barking....but deep dark "security alert" barking - and won't back away from the door.
It immediately shuts.
But the barking continues. I would find out later that her barking lit off the other dogs in the neighborhood as well.
MIL goes to the door and unlatches it carefully...suspicious...but only because she is, afterall, a grandma.
Empty...no one there.
Which causes a slight panic to now rest upon her. She had expected me or my wife...the dog doesn't usually bark like mad...but maybe she was just a little excited or confused.
So, now, she has to deal with the idea that someone tried to blatantly walk in my front door while neither of us is home - no knocking, no doorbell - at best, a neighborhood pest performing pranks...at worst a thug intent on burglary or doing harm to her or her grandkids.
I immediately felt sorry for her...but whatever pain that caused me was greatly surpased by my irritation at the whole incident.
Personally I was not shaken by what happened...never even came to my mind. I knew I could trust Jessie...she is a pit bull after all.
But I was more upset at the fact that it was likely some teenage kids messing around, trying to get in trouble or cause grief in the neighborhood.
No, I am not a sheltered suburbanite...I've done my time in some rough neighborhoods. But there, at least, you knew to expect it...so you took precautions. Here, on such a quiet street where kids roam free on their bicycles...such precautions seem more like ridiculous paranoia.
Well, I decided to canvas the neighborhood to see if anyone else had been affected or had seen anything. Nope...nothing...nobody.
I wish I could have written it off as a an older woman's paranoid imaginings...but Jessie hitting the door so hard...something she never does, even with new visitors (she is a tail-wagging happy calm dog)...tells me it must have been a prowler.
And, of course, this news story being fresh in my memory didn't help much:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/01/home.invasion.arrest.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch
Personally, for my own sanity, I'm writing it off as an idiotic prank or teenage foolishness.
I do plan on stepping up my home security a notch...and more importantly (after a few days have passed)...a refresher course for my MIL and kids on what to do should such an event actually transpire.
On the bright side of things...my wife is finally convinced that having an AmStaff (legalese for pit bull) is a great idea for a personal protection dog...and she was very relieved and grateful that Jessie "jumped immediately into action".
Stay safe, guys. :thumbup:
Dan
My home = halfway down a quiet street in a quiet suburb
Me = with scouts playing ultimate frisbee...
Wife = teaching a short class on sewing at church
Kids = at home with Mother-in-law, a short and slight, but wirey lady...great babysitter (does the dishes!)
Dog = resting but at attention (as always
)Front Door = unlocked, but "secured" with a door-catcher
Blissfully my wife and I return home from our late evening assignments (separately, but around the same time)...kids are already in bed, but not asleep. So we tend to them, thank Grandma for helping out (wife takes her home)...we take care of a few household things and settle in to watch American Idol recorded on the DVR.
Then my wife says...(and no matter how patient, how calm, how understanding, how prepared, how trained you are...you never like hearing these words)...
"I didn't want you to be concerned or upset...so I waited until now...I need to tell you about something that happened tonight"
By this time, my face is read and my fingernails are making little indentations to the inside of my palms...but I am waiting to hear what she has to say.
She relates the following story:
Around 8:15 PM my MIL hears the handle on the front door start to turn. The door opens far enough to begin to engage the door-catcher.
At this point, she is not concerned because that is what would happen if I or my wife had returned home. Yes, it would have been a little early (we arrived around 8:45) but not entirely unlikely.
Jessie explodes from her resting spot in the living room and lights up the foyer with a caucophony of heavy, hard and relentless barking - not "oh look a bird" barking....but deep dark "security alert" barking - and won't back away from the door.
It immediately shuts.
But the barking continues. I would find out later that her barking lit off the other dogs in the neighborhood as well.
MIL goes to the door and unlatches it carefully...suspicious...but only because she is, afterall, a grandma.
Empty...no one there.
Which causes a slight panic to now rest upon her. She had expected me or my wife...the dog doesn't usually bark like mad...but maybe she was just a little excited or confused.
So, now, she has to deal with the idea that someone tried to blatantly walk in my front door while neither of us is home - no knocking, no doorbell - at best, a neighborhood pest performing pranks...at worst a thug intent on burglary or doing harm to her or her grandkids.
I immediately felt sorry for her...but whatever pain that caused me was greatly surpased by my irritation at the whole incident.
Personally I was not shaken by what happened...never even came to my mind. I knew I could trust Jessie...she is a pit bull after all.
But I was more upset at the fact that it was likely some teenage kids messing around, trying to get in trouble or cause grief in the neighborhood.
No, I am not a sheltered suburbanite...I've done my time in some rough neighborhoods. But there, at least, you knew to expect it...so you took precautions. Here, on such a quiet street where kids roam free on their bicycles...such precautions seem more like ridiculous paranoia.
Well, I decided to canvas the neighborhood to see if anyone else had been affected or had seen anything. Nope...nothing...nobody.
I wish I could have written it off as a an older woman's paranoid imaginings...but Jessie hitting the door so hard...something she never does, even with new visitors (she is a tail-wagging happy calm dog)...tells me it must have been a prowler.
And, of course, this news story being fresh in my memory didn't help much:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/01/home.invasion.arrest.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch
Personally, for my own sanity, I'm writing it off as an idiotic prank or teenage foolishness.
I do plan on stepping up my home security a notch...and more importantly (after a few days have passed)...a refresher course for my MIL and kids on what to do should such an event actually transpire.
On the bright side of things...my wife is finally convinced that having an AmStaff (legalese for pit bull) is a great idea for a personal protection dog...and she was very relieved and grateful that Jessie "jumped immediately into action".
Stay safe, guys. :thumbup:
Dan
my neighbor's alzheimer afflicted father...who apparently thought he was visiting with George, his best friend who had died a few years ago....he made it obvious that he used to steel George's beers too....