Wednesday, May 27, 2009

What NOT to do

We had a very eventful long weekend which deserves its own post, but I must share this little story. We went away for the weekend and took my inlaws with us. We got home on Sunday night, late--around 11pm and as we were dropping them off at their house, I saw that their front door was wide open. As we pulled into the driveway, I said--"Hey, your front door is wide open!" Once we pulled into the driveway, you cannot see the front door, so Bill and his parents jumped out of the car to go take a look. Mistake #1. Bill stood at the door and yelled into the house that he called the police. Mistake #2. He heard a noise--a shuffling noise, so he turned around and walked away from the house. Then he saw a cat run out of the house past him. He turned around and went into the house. Mistake #3. Meanwhile my mom called 911 and the first thing they said was NOT to go in the house. So now I get out of the car and yell at them to all get the F-- out of the house. Bill seriously looked at me like I was crazy. I made Bill and his parents get back into the car to wait for the police.

The police came, checked out the house--all clear, nothing was stolen. It seems that the door did not get locked and the wind blew it open and the cat entered. Can you say LUCKY??? If that happened in our neighborhood, the house would have been totally ransacked. What is even luckier is that there wasn't a criminal in the house as Bill entered it. I don't know what he thought he was going to do if he saw someone, especially someone armed.

After our adrenaline surge wore off, we had a long talk about what mistakes were made and what the right thing to do, should this ever happen in the future. Bill agreed that what he did was stupid and we should have just stayed in the car and called the police. Period. It is so hard to think clearly in an emergency. You just act.

I wanted to share this story b/c home invasions are fairly common and we literally did everything wrong. We just got lucky.

4 comments:

Beth said...

So glad that it all worked out and everyone was safe and sound. I have a crazy "what NOT to do story." I was in Paris with a friend on the Metro, and a guy got on and tried to pick my friend's pocket. I heard my friend say, "Hey--my wallet!" And the guy that had gotten on the Metro took off running. Without thinking I took off after him and chased him down in the Metro. I was screaming "Police! Help!" And people were looking at me like I was absolutely off my rocker. I finally caught the guy and grabbed his shirt and he turned around with his arms up yelling something in French. My friend came up behind me and said he had his wallet--the guy hadn't gotten it. So I let the guy go and he ran off and we went on our way. I am so incredibly lucky that it was a puny little French guy who didn't beat the crap out of me. How amazingly stupid was that! It was pure instinct that took over, though--all adrenaline. Definitely not a smart instinct, though. Hopefully I learned my lesson, although I still laugh thinking about the guy's face when he turned around. Crazy.

LauraC said...

Crazy!

We left our front door unlocked for TWO WEEKS one time. We left it unlocked for the cleaners and then went to lock it when the cleaners came back two weeks later. LUCKY.

DesiDVM said...

When I was in vet school, I live alone in this really creepy basement studio apartment with an even creepier guy who lived in the house upstairs. When I had to come home after dark I would go around checking the closets and shower with a knife in my hand. Finally the thought occurred to me...what exactly am I going to do with this knife if someone IS hiding in the closet?? Thankfully I never found out:)

Donna said...

Yikes! that is scary - glad to hear you are all okay though.