Wild Saturday Night

On Saturday night I was curled up on my couch watching TV in my sweats and eating chocolate covered almonds. A good Saturday night for this phase of my life.  I was in our family room which is where the front door opens into and the room has several windows that face onto our front porch. It's the street side of the house, but reasonably removed from the sidewalk (for the city) with a small plot of soil, steps and the width of the porch between us and the bustle of the street. It was just before midnight and the rest of my family was sleeping.

I heard a kind of rustling at my window and I called out "Hello?"  Then suddenly, my window opened (lock your freaking windows, folks) and a young man began crawling into my house. 

Obviously, I was terrified. I jumped up spilling my water and ran to the window yelling, "Get out of my house!"  He answered, "No, it's ok. I live here."  At this point I began to realize that he was not so much a burglar, but more a drunk and confused kid. Still, my adrenaline was pumping and I was pissed. I tried closing the window on him, but he was stronger than me and kept trying to get in. 

At this point I screamed for jb (in a decidedly un-damsel-in-distress-like growl) and as jb came running into the room the unwelcome visitor disappeared into the night. 

Jb sat with me and calmed me down as I called 911 to report it. I made sure to tell the operator that I didn't think he was armed or intending to break and enter, rather intoxicated and mixed up - but still I'd appreciate some police presence on site. They took it seriously and I declined to press charges. I felt safe. Irritated and worked up, but not frightened. 

I went to bed and assumed that was the end of it. On Sunday morning, I was home alone (jb takes the kids to the grocery store on many weekend mornings so I can sleep in and have some time alone - I know) and the doorbell rang. I answered the door and found the young man from the night before. I raised my eyebrow and he said, "I'd like to talk to you about last night."

I invited him in and he gave a very sincere apology. He said that night he's gone to  a concert and had been drinking. He got drunker than he'd intended (not sure I buy that part) and when his friend gave him a ride home, he dropped him off in front of the wrong house. He actually lives two doors down and thought he was locked out. Understandable. I'm not going to pretend I haven't scaled a public statue under the influence of several too-strong margaritas.  And here he was, nervous, embarrassed and oh-so polite.

I told him that I really appreciated him coming down in the light of day to apologize and we formally introduced ourselves.  Then, I told him that I know I'm not his mother, but I am a mother and I hope he is more careful because people get killed that way.  He assured me that he would not be doing anything like that again and we shook hands and parted ways.

Still, my head is swimming with all the different, much worse, ways the scenario could have ended.  Of course initially I had been imagining how it would have been different if I'd been faced with a malicious intruder and how I can better protect my family.  I can promise you my windows won't be left unlocked anymore.  Now my mind is full of all the ways a misunderstanding can end in tragedy.  I can't really stretch my imagination to the point of envisioning myself as a gun owner - but I do know that in that moment, when a strange man was crawling in my window and my children were in the next room sleeping, I wished I had a baseball bat to keep him from advancing into my home.  I know people have reacted with worse.

This morning I saw my neighbor/would-be intruder walking to school.  We exchanged a wave an a smile.  I'm really glad things ended the way they did - but man, more excitement than I was expecting this weekend.