I recently moved back into suburbia. I have a small dog that, thankfully, has good hearing. A little too good, since she runs around the house barking when my neighbor pulls into his driveway. Thank god for this dog, because my hearing isn't what it used to be.
So, she's doing her regular thing, sitting in front of the heat register in the living room. I'm reading on the Internet and listening to the radio. She does her alarm bark. I think I hear voices, but it could just be in the background on the radio (it's so hard to tell which direction). She barks again, so I tell her to pipe down. Then, a few minutes later, she starts barking again. I turn off the radio, and this time I hear voices outside.
I reach over and part the curtains. Nope, neighbor's snug in their house. So I get up, go to the kitchen and turn on the light for the breezeway. No one there. The talking stops. I walk over to the front door, and look out. There's a guy with a winter cap on, maybe 5'11", 250-260 pounds lumbering along. I continue to watch him as he walks across my front yard. He's now under the lone street light out in the middle of nowhere (kind of odd now that I think about it). It's hard to tell because his face is shadowed, but I get the impression that he is turning his head, so I duck away from the door.
I go grab my jacket and my DW, currently with the 2" barrel on it. I only have .38s, so I load it up, and stick it in my pocket. Keep in mind this took less than a minute to do. I return to the front door...
I swear, this guy disappeared faster than a government budget surplus. I didn't hear him stomping through the hard snow, and he didn't look like, or have the gait of my elderly neighbors. I grab my Maglite and go outside with snubby in jacket pocket, my hand on the stocks. I go to the end of the driveway. I can see some 500 feet in either direction, nothing. The neighbor across the street has no lights on, and this guy had no flashlight. I look for new footprints in the snow in my yard, and I look at the backyard. No sounds. Unbelievable, he evaporated.
I go back in the house and lock up. 10:10 PM. It is highly unusual for someone to be walking down my street at 10PM, in dark clothes, and with no flashlight. I'm probably the only person who spotted this guy, and the guy wasn't doing anything wrong, only behaving in a highly suspicious manner. I'm not going to bug the cops.
Years ago, I lived in an okay neighborhood surrounded by not-so-nice areas. It was at the intersection of a major and a minor highway, so the goblins often found it the ideal location to cause trouble and make a quick exit. I got tired of the ex-wife waking me up and telling me to go check downstairs whenever something creaked. I still keep shotshells in the sock drawer in the dresser closest to the bed, out of habit. For a while after, I slept with a revolver under the pillow.
What do you think? Although there was no immediate danger, it made me think what would I do. I think I've become complacent. Heck, I don't carry, and I don't even know where my holster went.
