If you know me for even five seconds, you know that I am a huge scaredy cat.  Like, afraid of my own shadow scaredy cat.  


Anyways, owning a home has not made me any less of a scaredy cat.  One day the power went out in our cul-du-sac, and Peter wasn’t home from work yet.  I called him to tell him the power went out, and he told me that I had to go in the DARK SCARY BASEMENT to check to see if it was flooded.  I ran down, put my foot down and it was dry, and then I ran back up the stairs and declared that I would NOT be doing that again.  


And once it’s in my head that I’m scared about something, I am a wreck, jumping at the littlest things and gasping when I hear any noise.


The other day when I got home from work, as I was pulling into the garage, I noticed something was off.  A big something.


The door from the garage into our entryway/kitchen was wide open.  


Too many episodes of Law & Order flashed through my mind as I considered backing out of the garage, closing the door, and waiting until Pete got home from work so he could be manly and check everything out.  But then I thought that the murderer in the house would have heard the garage door open, and was probably hiding somewhere so that he could get me when I came in.


So I sat in my car considering what I should do, and TRYING to think logically about the situation.  The man-door to the garage was still locked.  Nothing in our garage was out of place.  


As I got out of my car, I left the garage door open in case I had to make a fast get away.  And then I glanced around the garage looking for something to carry with me as I went into the house (note: buy a baseball bat).  Tennis racket?  No.  Plastic shovel with metal edge?  Maybe…  New garden shears that aren’t out of the cardboard?  Yes.  So I folded the edge of the cardboard down so that I could stab someone if needed.  Kind of like this…

You get the point.


I had also taken out my phone and dialed 9-1-1 into the keypad with my thumb hovering over the “call” button just in case I had to stab anyone.  I was ready to enter.


I walked through the house turning on all the lights with the garden shears leading the way.  I was suddenly very aware at how loudly I breathe.  

After I checked all of the closets, behind the shower curtains, and all corners of our suddenly gigantic house, I walked over to the basement door and chain-locked it.  That thing has never come in so handy.  

I texted Pete that he left the door to the house wide open and that I thought someone broke in, and his response was “whoopsie.”  Uhhhh, yeah.  Whoopsie is right.

When he got home I made him check the basement.  No one was hiding down there.

Then he saw the hedge trimmers on the kitchen counter, and asked what they were doing there.  I told him that I needed them to protect myself.  


He laughed.

I asked for a home security system.