Blackened Friday

A few years back, I convinced Sam that Black Friday shopping is what the cool kids do. When he doesn't work, we generally venture out together. This year, I had zero desire to get up early nor to fight crowds of people. Sam did. He woke Becky (who begged to go) and they headed out at 5 in the AM. I rolled over and attempted to go back to sleep.

Click. Bang. Stomp.

Holy freak, someone is in the house. "It's Sam coming back in for something" I thought. Myself replied with "it's been a half hour since he left and you know that he doesn't come back for anything once he's left the house." "Yeh, you're right, someone is in the house," said I.

And then the dogs started barking and I got really freaked out. I'm normally very level headed over these things, but alone at 5:30 AM when someone is stomping around in your house is a hard time to be brave. The level headed me prevailed for a second when I had the inspiration to call Sam's cell and ask if he'd been back to the house. (By now, a good 5 minutes had passed.) He didn't pick up.

I had another inspiration. We have a pistol in the closet for a reason. Mostly because Sam has always wanted a pistol and it was a nice gift, but protection also comes to mind. As quietly as I could, I got it down from the top shelf (did you know that sliding glass doors are really, really loud when you need to be really, really quiet?) and pulled it from the box.

Awesome.

Except not. While I have no clue if we even have ammo for this gun, I knew that didn't matter. What did matter was the fact that there's a locking device clamped onto the trigger and the key is stored separately. (See us be safety conscious?) Someone would surely notice that, even though it was dark. (The mind isn't the most sane thing in a situation like this.)

All those CSI shows I watched were coming in handy. Put one hand over the other, hiding the entire trigger lock, thereby fooling any intruder into both thinking that the gun was a working model and that I knew what I was doing with it.

I crept out into the hallway, holding the pistol in front of me, rounding corners with it leading the way. I stood at the top of the steps debating whether or not to turn on lights, and finally decided that I'd at least like to see my end coming. I snapped on the hall light and hid from the downstairs view, my gun at the ready.

Nothing. No sounds. No movement. Just dogs barking like mad.

I crept downstairs, knowing for sure that someone was hiding, my plush red bathrobe a bright beacon on the steps.

Nothing. No sounds. No movement. Just dogs barking like mad.

With the gun leading the way, I stealthily crept through the house clearing room after room until I decided that whoever it was had left.

Obviously they decided that we have nothing worth stealing. Or they were terrified of crated dogs. Or the thought of my red robed self with what amounted to a toy gun was scarier than anything they'd ever encountered.

And then I laid in bed, listening to every snowflake hitting the window for the next hour, until I talked myself into calming down and just resting already.

Turns out that if you let a boy go small game hunting with his cousin, he'll come back to the house at 5:30 AM for a coat because it snowed overnight. But I guess taking your gun for an occaional tour of the house isn't a bad thing. I'll just hope for a less stressful walk next go-round.