Why My Dog Deserves a Goddamned Medal

Everyone loves their dog.  But mine is awesome and he deserves a mother fucking medal.

Let me explain.

My Tuesday began with a bit of anxiety.  I had been planning for weeks to go see Jenny Lawson read from her awesome new book Furiously Happy but there were a few complications.  The hubs was away at a conference in Las Vegas which meant that I would have to A. race out of work to make it in time B. take my 1.5 y/o with me to said reading and C. pray to whatever gods were listening that he could sit still and not scream or knock over a book display at the bookstore.

We made it to the event.  The kiddo made it through with so few whiny squawks that it was a bonafide miracle.  Jenny Lawson was awesome and funny and brave and I am so glad that I took the leap and did something outside of my comfort zone.  Since I had the kid with me, we got boosted to the front of the book signing line where I embarrassedly asked her to write her often uttered phrase "What the shit?" on my bookmark in order to glance at the phrase on days when people were being a-holes.

Jenny Lawson is delightful!

Unfortunately, my new favorite phrase came in handy less than a half hour after the event.

We were less than five minutes from home when my cell phone rang.  I don't usually answer my cell while driving, but saw that it was our home security company calling and picked up.  The convo went something like this:

"Yes, Ma'am we have an alert that your alarm is..."

*rain, wind and traffic* "What? I can't hear you?  I shouldn't even be on the phone right now..."

"...ma'am the back door alarm is going off..."

"What alarm?"

"Ma'am, what is your security word?"

"My security word?  It's ______."

"Correct.  The back door alarm is going off, would you like us to send the police?"

"I, uh, I'm not even at home right now.  I'm like, 5 minutes away.  I don't think you need to send the cops.  Just turn the alarm off."

"Alright.  Let us know if you need us to contact the police at a later time."

I pull into the driveway and everything at the house looks normal.  Our door sometimes doesn't stay shut properly when you lock it and changes in air pressure can force it slightly open causing the alarm to go off.  I assumed this is all that happened.  I pulled very vigorously on the handle and while it was locked, it gave about an inch or so as I expected. There was a broken off metal mop/brook handle laying on the pavement outside the backdoor.  I shrugged, turned off the security, unlocked the door and brought the kid inside.  Everything seemed normal inside so I went about the traditional bedtime routine and called the hubs and put him on speaker so I could tell him what happened.

After assuring him that everything seemed normal, he told me that it might not be a bad idea to call the non-emergency police.  During the entire call, my adorable (but sometimes annoying) corgi was barking his head off.  While he does bark on occasion, this was constant, super agitated barking.  I assured DJ again that everything was fine and ended the call. I checked all of the rooms in our upstairs; nothing was disturbed. Albus continued to bark.

I texted my neighbor and asked if she'd seen anything strange outside a bit after 8.  She responded immediately saying: "I did.  I was just getting home and saw 4(?) guys by our houses.  It was weird.  It looked like they had sticks or something in their hands."

!!!!!!!

Guess that explained the broken off broom handle.  With that information plus the continued barking from Albus, I started to feel a chill run up my back.  Could someone have gotten in, seen me coming home and hid somewhere in the house? I dialed non-emergency and went downstairs to look a little closer on the first floor.  DJ had suggested that maybe someone had managed to break in through a window in the back of the house and then exited through the back door (it is possible to engage our deadbolt and then slam it shut behind you, leaving the door locked).  All of the windows were fine, again nothing out place.  As I was talking with the dispatcher, I flipped on the light to go down to our basement and froze.  There was a huge dent on the wall behind the backdoor matching the door handle.  I was sure that dent hadn't been there before and I started to panic.  I immediately went back upstairs and asked them to please send an officer over.  She said to be safe and call 911 immediately if anything happened.

After about 30 minutes, two detectives arrived.  I explained the situation, they took some photos and helped me search the house.  They said that 3 teens were caught a few blocks away trying to break into another house.  The detectives thought that the kids had tried to get into the house but were scared off by the alarm.

I then proceeded to not sleep again ever.

The next day, one of the detectives called me.  Turns out, there were four teens and they caught the fourth one around 1 AM early that morning.  Only one of the four admitted to anything but he did give details about the break-ins.  Apparently they were bored and just started breaking into houses in our neighborhood.  They managed to KICK IN OUR BACK DOOR (mystery of the doorknob dent= solved) but only got as far as the landing before running back out because of the dog.  So the deadbolt was still out, they slammed the door behind them and it locked again.  They broke into four other houses (including one where the owner was home!) before being caught.  And this was all between 8 and 9 PM on a Tuesday night.  Damn.

lt;dr Some dumb ass kids broke into our house, Albus chased them off and is a mother fucking hero.