Cops and Ant Exorcism

See this? This is my front door. Austin and I were out in our garage Saturday when our neighbor came over and told us that our front door had been open from Wednesday--Thursday. "Then I called the cops," she said, "Just to make sure no one had broken in or anything. The policeman went in and said no one was home, so he just closed the door." She sounded vaguely disappointed that our family hadn't been found lying murdered in a pool of blood. I explained to her that I had probably forgotten to lock it when we left and the wind must have blown it open.

Austin and I went inside, commenting to each other on how it was kind of freaky that our door was open that long, what a nice neighborhood we live in, etc. "Boy," I said. "I'm glad my house was clean!" Austin looked confused. "You know, for when the cops came over." Austin still looked confused. Perhaps he was wondering why I wasn't glad that our stuff hadn't been stolen or maybe just wondering if our house really had been clean because we had only been home for six hours and it was trashed.

In any case, when the cops come over to your house, you want it to be clean, and my house was clean, baby. It's kind of like if you break your leg and have to go to the hospital you want to have just showered and put clean underwear on. What are the odds? So I was pretty happy about that. I did wonder what the cops (one cop?) thought about the cinammon and corn starch sprinkled around my door and baseboards to repel invading ants. I've moved on to vacuuming them up now. I just felt kind of silly as I threw spices at the wall, like I should be chanting under my breath or yelling "Out, Damned Ants!" If I can vacuum them up faster than they can procreate I think we're good.

Calling 911

A few days ago I looked out my front window and saw a tall, skinny white guy dressed in black with a black knit hat loping across my lawn. For those who have not been to my house, my lawn is in the back of a house and off a private drive surrounded by backyards of other people and a large gravel patch. In short, it's not on the way to anywhere. I stepped outside to get a good look at this guy/yell at him (How dare you walk across my lawn!) at which point he started running, jumped my neighbor's fence, and hid on their porch, peeking out to see if I noticed him. When he realized that I was indeed watching him his head disappeared.

What to do? Calling 911 seemed a bit drastic, but there are a lot of break-ins in my neighborhood and this guy definitely seemed good for it, so I called. When you're a little kid this number is drilled into your head. But do you ever get to call it? No. So I called, gave the operator a description of this guy, the location of my neighbor, etc. I don't know if she even sent someone to check it out, but she got my phone number in case the police wanted to talk to me. (!) It was a rather flat end to what promised to be a thrilling afternoon.