So, I came home from work yesterday… COPS EVERYWHERE!! Cop in front of my house, neighbor’s house. Something like 8 cop cars.  Next door neighbor’s front door was open, and three cops were walking in.  I thought a shooting had just occurred, or something similarly horrible.

I didn’t pull into my driveway right away, because I wasn’t sure that I could.  So I did a double-U turn and made it into my driveway the 2nd time. 

Apparantly my next-door neighbor Tim (who was an extra in The Silence Of The Lambs — I verified this) was robbed.

His house is worth wayyyyyyyyyyyy more than our house, and his yard is immaculate, and he hires people to work on it.  He has diamond jewelry, lots of cash an antiques — his family is all lawyers.

I suppose my purposeful-keeping-of-a-messy-yard as a burglar deterrent has, in a sense, worked.  Or has it?  The house 2 down got robbed a week ago, and then the house 1 down got robbed yesterday.  Is my house next?  I hope not.

So I go and talk with Tim & the police for awhile, and one of them says, “Oh, that was your house?  I was just creeping around in your backyard with my gun.  I thought i saw something, but knowing my luck it was probably just a dog.”

That wasn’t word-for-word what he said.  He mentioned that he stumbled over the “silt fence”, which I guess is what the orange construction fence we have in our backyard is called. 

I found the idea of a cop stumbling around in my completely unlit backyard with a gun both hilarious and disturbing at the same time.

I think I want more protection now….  I want the sticker that has a picture of a gun and says “nothing in this house is worth your life”.  I want fake cameras mounted.  I want an mp3 of dogs barking that I can loop while I am at work.  I want outdoor motion lights that send chimes to my X-10 remote chime units (I bought them years ago but lack the know-how to install them).  I want ADT signs.  Anyone got some?