An Uninvited Stranger
Have you ever been scared when you are home alone with an unwanted visitor? I have to admit it has been a fear of mine for quite some time. I have talked myself out of it many times; being scared that is… I figure I am careful on Facebook of telling too many of our comings and goings. Honestly, if we are away the house is locked up tight; but in the past, if I come home alone or with just the kids I check around to make sure everything is just as I left it. We live outside of town and have 5 dogs (well one is a Bassett Hound-so he does not make me feel safe)…But the other 4 all weigh between 40-55 pounds and bark A LOT. This has always made me feel “safe”. So when I had the uninvited stranger experience last Thursday it changed how I now live.
Now granted I was not harmed physically, but now mentally the non-safe feeling is back. Last Thursday my husband took my son to baseball practice. I had been up till 4 am with working and cleaning up after a sick dog-so I was still in bed when they left. We don’t normally lock the house if one of us is still home, so this was not out of the norm for us.
I was laying in bed and the dogs got to barking, again not unusual, especially if Fed-ex or the mailman has to leave a package in our back room which is off of our kitchen. Our bedroom is off of the kitchen. When we moved into this house it was only a 3 bedroom but my oldest wouldn’t be living here much longer, so I felt eventually we would move into his room. So back to the story…..
So as I was laying there and the dogs were barking their fool heads off, I heard the door open. Oddly no one told them to shut up-another occurrence when my husband comes back from dropping one of the kids off. I thought it was odd so I looked over and there was an older teen-aged boy walking around our kitchen table like he was headed to our living room. My mind was racing-first thinking… who is this kid? why is he in our house? do I know him? Just then he turned his head back like he sensed I was laying there. He looked at me, I looked at him..and he turned around and ran FAST. I swear he said “Oh Shit” as he ran out the back door and through our backroom. I jumped out of bed and threw a sweatshirt on, tried to look out the back window of our bedroom and couldn’t see anything. I stood there trying to think of what to do…. just then I looked back out and I could see our van parked.
My husband came in and I looked at him and asked: “did you see a kid out back?”. He said “No”. Then I said, “there was a teen-aged guy in our kitchen”. THEN he hugged me and I started to cry. He immediately called my brother-in-law, who is the head investigator for our county Sherrif’s department. I got to shaking trying to focus on what he looked like, as I was sure I would be asked. My brother-in-law said he couldn’t run right up but to give him a description. Oddly my husband saw a silver/gray car leaving our road with 3 teen-aged boys in it when he came onto our road. So he gave my brother-in-law a description of the car, and I gave a description of the kid. 5’10-5’11, skinny, dark reddish-brown hair with a royal blue baseball cap on, kinda cocked up, baggy, dark, zip-up hooded sweatshirt, jeans I was pretty sure.
Pretty soon a Sheriff department car pulled up out front and my husband met him out front. He was going to drive through our road and make sure they weren’t anywhere close by. In the meantime, I threw on jeans and my sneakers. My brother-in-law called back, once the deputy came back. He wanted the Deputy to bring me downtown and see if I could make an ID based on our descriptions at one of the local gas stations. This was my first ride in the back seat of a police car (or front for that matter). I was all uptight, I hadn’t had a shower..lol I know an odd thing to be nervous about or maybe it was all of the ‘what if’s’ going through my mind. We pulled in and the teen-ager that was sitting on the sidewalk was not him. I can’t say he wasn’t with the other kid but the other kid wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I didn’t really think they would find him; and if they did he didn’t ‘break any laws’, our back door was unlocked, he didn’t steal anything.
The things that bother me most are: why our house? why didn’t our dogs attack him? I mean they backed right off, yet he wasn’t anyone I had ever seen before. He walked in like he owned the place-so maybe they sensed his confidence? Our dogs aren’t mean by nature but their hairs raise sometimes when one of the kids’ friends visit.
SO what have I learned?
- lock our doors if I am alone, or if any of us are here alone.
- if something like this ever happens again (which I am hoping not) immediately call 911. Possibly they could have been here sooner and found the kid(s).
- if our car isn’t here make the house look like someone could be here, whether it is leaving music on in the kitchen, lights on, etc.
- lock our doors if we are home (if there is only one of us) and especially when we aren’t home. (yeah I know I repeated this one-but it is the most important one).
- don’t divulge comings and goings online-not that we do this often but ya know “going to my parents for Sunday dinner” has been something I have posted before.
Things I always thought I would do but didn’t: scream…lol Why didn’t I say something? In this day and age with drugs, kids who ‘don’t care’, teen-agers that will walk into your house with 4 barking dogs on your backdoor..you just can’t ever be too safe. I have since locked myself out of our house twice…but I would rather be locked out-than have another uninvited stranger. ……………..
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