I was welcomed wonderfully into the New Year at 3:02 AM by our lovely alarm system, blaring away. I didn't stay up late last night, so at least I got some sleep before the alarm started going off! My Dad rushed downstairs first and I got up and looked around too after. I felt like I was right in the middle of one of those strange horror movies - any second an armed madman (madwoman?) could jump out and shoot us.
Well, it was nothing like that - everything was completely normal. Aren't you disappointed now?
It's turned into more of a mystery now. The alarm display said "kitchen raid", so my Dad called the security people and they said it was the window, but no footprints or anything could be found near our kitchen window outside, even this morning. My guess is that a bird went pecking at the window pane and that innocent pecking was what set off the alarm.
I must say, "kitchen raid" to me sounds like a gang of raccoons decided to ransack our fridge. Anyhow, I'm still alive enough to pester the blogging world, so it wasn't such a big deal.
Now we're a lot less careful. We talked about the "event", I guess, for an hour this morning and decided it would be too foolish to just go down and take the alarm off next time - first, a person might be there to kill us and second, if we take it off, the police will take it as a false alarm. In the future, my mom suggests we look out the window to see a car first, and if there is, we should barricade ourselves in our rooms. Almost each room has a phone upstairs, so calling 911 would be our best bet, most likely, if we heard or saw something suspicious.
Well, at least we have an alarm system! One of our neighbours didn't have one a few years ago, so when they were out on a weekend, teenagers broke in and opened up their cupboards, etc. I'm sure "raids" like these really make people wonder about their personal safety and the security of their homes.
This incident reminds me of something interesting I read. In Amherst, Emily Dickinson's home was apparently broken into and she wrote a note to her nephew that said:
"Burglaries have become so frequent, is it safe to leave the Golden Rule out at night?"
I love Dickinson's sense of humour!
Now the only thing that I'm wondering is...Qui est le criminal?
Emily is a great poet and writer, you are well on your way to emulating her. You are very good at writing, I hope you LOVE as much as you are good at it. Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteI love and admire Emily so, so much! She gives me so inspiration and comfort. It's an honour to know I emulate her in some way. Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteYikes! Sounds like you came up with a very good plan--I should talk to my husband about what our plan is, if our alarm ever goes off like that. It would freak me out, with us downstairs and the kiddos up.
ReplyDeleteI would be quite frightened if someone was indeed in our house! There are too many horror movies out there with robbers in people's homes...
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