My super scary morning

Thursday morning, I was woken up around 5am by a loud bang. I sat up quickly and didn’t hear anything else, so I ignored it. A few minutes later, I sat up again and noticed it was BLAZING hot in my house. I got up to turn the heat off and as I was turning around to adjust the heater, something caught my eye. My front door was OPEN!* I instantly ran back into my bedroom, shut and locked the bedroom door and began freaking out. I was shaking, and almost paralyzed with fear. Was someone in my house? What if they wanted to steal my puppy? (oh yes, those were the thoughts that were running through my head – someone has broken in at 5am to steal my super adorable dog)…I finally gathered myself  enough to be able to call 911.

The very nice dispatcher kept me from passing out as I sat huddled in my room rocking back and forth like a crazy person. When I saw a light under my bedroom door, I whispered (loudly) to the dispatcher: “are there officers here?? I see a light!” She reassured me that were officers at my house, but to wait until they announced themselves before I went out in the main living area. Around this time I started to think (semi) logically again. I said to myself: “self, you have an iron wrought gate with a deadbolt. In the two seconds you noticed the interior door was open, did it appear the gate was open? It did not. How could someone have gotten in if the gate was locked tight? Hmm…self, maybe the interior too was never shut tight? Oh, no, self. Are you going to get arrested for making a false report. But it’s so SCARY!” Right about then, after what felt like an eternity (but was actually about 4 minutes) the officers knocked on the door and announced themselves. I brushed off my tears fear and went and met them at the door. As I unlocked the gate to let the (3!!) officers in, I realized that I had completely over reacted. There was no one in my house. The wind had blew open the interior door, as it had not caught completely shut when I went to bed. Total false alarm. Luckily, I was still too shook up to pick up on any mocking or annoyance from the officers. In fact, I think one was genuinely concerned about me having a heart attack. He asked me about 15 times if I was going to be okay.

In retrospect, I think I did the right thing by calling 911. People are crazy, I live alone and as much as I love my 10 pound mini doxie, she ain’t gonna protect me. I just think that I should maybe pay a little more attention when shutting down my house for the night. Oops! 🙂

The other interesting thing about that whole morning is how deeply it shook me. I generally think I’m a badass and pretty tough. I box, play football, and I have a napoleon complex. I generally don’t back down,especially if I think I’m right. However, I turned into the biggest baby the second I thought there was any real danger. I was not thinking, oh yeah let me take out whomever is in my house. I wasn’t thinking – I was just terrified. Honestly, it was probably a good reality check and a reminder that we’re all just human.

*Important fact: I actually have two front doors. I have an iron wrought gate with a deadbolt lock and a regular door. The regular door was open.