Don't Make Me a Target

Dear Readers....today is a holiday. The lazy kind of holiday, where you get to sleep late and then spend the day doing nothing. And with it being such a holiday, I really hadn't planned on blogging today. But sometimes, things happen. Big things, like, you wind up, on a quiet Monday morning, with a sniper in your bedroom, sitting on the chair from your vanity, a rifle stretched across your bed. And since that is how this morning got started, I just had to share.

That is my bed. And that is a Very Big Rifle on my bed.

We'll start last night/early this morning, around 2-ish, when I finally stumbled into bed after a completely pork-tastic day. The plan was to sleep. Sleep and sleep until I was fully done sleeping and ready to wake up. Sometimes, though, decisions are made for you, and they're not necessarily what you had in mind. In this particular case, my neighbor, a rather sketchy fella that never seemed quite right, decided that I would be waking shortly before 7, when he went out in his backyard and, I assumed, shot off a whole bunch of fire crackers. Why he would feel the need to do such a thing, I had no idea. But after a few mumbles and grumbles and dirty looks out the window, I began to relax back towards sleep.

Sleep didn't get much of a chance to happen, though, because the phone decided to ring. And when a phone decides to ring at 7 am on a holiday morning, you know it's not gonna be good. This particular phone call was the good, across the street neighbor calling with the news that there were, very suddenly, very many police cars appearing out front. Police cars out of which rifle wielding officers lept, shields up, helmets on, bullhorns telling the noisy neighbor to come out with his hands up- those weren't no firecrackers he was playing with earlier.

 

Mother of crap! Since my multi-windowed bedroom faces the offending house, I was outta there. But not before a belly-crawl to the dresser for some pants- if I was to be escorted away from my home and towards safety, it surely wasn't gonna be with my knickers on display! I snuck like a criminal through the house, dodging the windows out of which rifles and Kevlar-ed cops were swarming everywhere. It was decided that the basement steps were probably a wise place for coffee this morning. But there were no windows to peek out, and no audible voices alerting to what is going on. Back upstairs. The other steps will be....ok. Can hear everything, decent view. Speaking of views, there seems to be a camouflaged mean with a very large duffel bag coming to the door...good thing I grabbed those pants.  "Hey, good morning, how are you, everything ok, you guys wanna leave or is it cool? Oh, and can I borrow a window?" Sure, Mr. Handsome Sniper Man, my bedroom is all yours.

Which is how I wound up with a high-powered rifle laying across my ruffled, rose-sheeted bed. And a swat team in the driveway. For nearly three hours. Three long, breakfastless hours. At the end of the three hours, there was yelling. And gunshots. And again, the ringing phone. It was the good, across the street neighbor again, in hysterics. Not the terrified, tearful sort, more the pee your pants laughing sort. Seems my genius neighbor decided to attack the robot the swat team brought along, rock 'em sock 'em style, while his girlfriend made a run for it. Neither got very far, and I'm thinking it's highly unlikely they'll be coming back home tonight.

The rest of the day was spent laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. There was my sniper, all big and burly with an equally big and burly gun, surrounded by shabby chic bedroom loveliness (even he wanted pictures of the gun on the bed). There was the swat team, huddled in the yard, standing brave in the face of a gun-wielding lunatic, and yet terrified of his harmless puppy (which I of course pointed out to them). There was the one casualty of the stand off- the robot. I hear he gave as good as he got.

So thank you, to the men and women who kept us safe this morning (and for blocking off all streets in the area- after the drama, the silence was absolutely golden!). Thank you for removing the riff raff from next door. And thank you summer, for going out not with a whimper, but with a hell of a bang.

xo