Maggie Shayne--One Crazy Night!

Okay, so I’m sitting home alone, in my safe, wonderful house, one particularly dark night, just two days after Halloween. It’s late, I’m relaxing, watching TV, and suddenly, my burglar alarm goes off.

After calmly peeling myself down from the ceiling, I went to the alarm panel to see what was happening, punched in the code to make it stop shrieking, and read the alert on the screen, which told me that one of my locked doors was open. Now this wasn’t like the day when I burned the pancakes and set off the fire alarm. That day, I knew what was wrong. This night, I had no rational explanation. The only possible thing that came to mind was that my door really was being messed with, and that meant someone had to be messing with it. I went through the house, checking each door, including the one that was allegedly open. None were. All were still locked. Maybe, I thought, someone had tried to open one, and set off the alarm, which had probably scared them away. God knows it scared me plenty!

By this time I was wondering why the alarm company hadn’t yet phoned me to verify that it was a legitimate alarm. I decided to check the phone.

Dead. Dead. Dead. (Yeah, my mind says, just like you’re going to be when the bad guy gets done with you.) I swear, every horror film I ever saw in my misspent childhood (and I saw them ALL) ran through my mind. I don’t have a gun. So I went to the kitchen and got a big, sharp butcher knife. Then I sat on the sofa, with a blanket on my lap, and hid the knife under it so the crazed maniac who would be bursting from the shadows at any moment wouldn’t be forewarned before I carved out his liver. I knew the police would come, because the alarm had gone off and the company hadn’t been able to get me by phone. That’s protocol. I knew they would come. All I had to do was survive until they did. And I fully intended to. I said, aloud, “Okay, pal. Bring it on. If it’s gonna be you or me, then you can bet your ass it’s not gonna be me. Let’s go.” (Of course I was shaking and crying a little so it probably ruined the impact.)

The clock ticked. No one came. I sat there waiting. And suddenly there was a noise from the enclosed front porch, the entrance to which was about four feet from the couch where I sat. I thrust my hand under the blanket to grab the knife—and sliced the tip of my middle finger. (Note to self—given my prowess with a knife, a gun might not be such a great idea. I mean, it would have been worse if I’d accidentally shot my finger off, right?)

I don’t think there could have been more blood if the bad guy really had shown up. I soaked two giant wads of paper towels, and made a pretty good mess before I got to them.

Finally, the police arrived. And don’t get me wrong, I love cops, and these guys were great, but it took them 25 minutes from the time the alarm went off, which isn’t exactly reassuring. But they took their time with me, searched the house, the grounds, looked for signs anyone had been trying to get in and found nothing. They suggested there was a malfunction with the system, and since the phone was working again by then, I was feeling better and let them leave. (Reluctantly, I must admit.)

Talking to the former owner here the next day, I learned there’s a contact on one door that sometimes misbehaves when it’s snowy or rainy. (Thanks for warning me ahead of time, pal.) He also said the police response time is usually very fast. It was just a fluke. There’s usually a unit within five or ten minutes of me. Okay. So I called the alarm company again and asked them to come and replace it. We still haven’t determined what went wrong with the phones that night, aside from Mercury being retrograde, but the techs are coming back to do some upgrading of the system for me, and I intend to have them test the hell out of it while they’re here.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering if this system is a good idea or a bad one. So far it told the world when I burned pancakes, and terrified me over a malfunction while killing my phone lines. On the up side, it is reassuring when you’re sitting there terrified to know beyond a doubt that help is on the way. So I guess it is a good thing. But a big dog would be better. Or at least a significant supplement.

On that front, the news is very good indeed. The next day, my firstborn called to tell me she had decided to let me have Sally, her great Dane, after all. (I mentioned Sally here a couple of blogs ago, and included a photo, after dog sitting her for a four day weekend. I enjoyed her so much I wanted to keep her, and my daughter had been thinking about finding a home for her.) She’s a fantastic dog, old for a Dane, at nine. But loving and protective and being the size of a small horse, pretty intimidating to any would-be intruders. Wrinkles, my thirteen-year-old bulldog, probably wouldn’t so much as growl at one.

So Sally is here now. Wrinkles seemed glad to see her. I had brought my cat, Glory, home last weekend, and she wasn’t too thrilled with Sally’s presence, and is still giving her a wide berth. But she held her own with the two giant labs at the old place, so she’ll be fine.

So that was my adventure for the week. I hope not to have anything quite so dramatic to report next time! But if I do, at least I’ll have something interesting to blog about. So, to quote some savvy writers’ favorite saying, “It’s all good!”

Maggie