Safety and Security
My brother Russ called to ask how high the river was and I said it was about a yard and a half from my house. Russ said, “My gosh. I didn’t realize it was that bad. I’ll come right up.”
I said “Wait, wait. That’s all of my yard and half of the neighbor’s yard not just 60 inches. This is reported to be the crest. I’ll call if it comes further.”
During this time, I put off mowing the lawn as long as I could. I like to do it often enough to keep hope alive for the neighbors but not so often as to be a burden on the environment or me.
Finally, the first week in June, the grass was dry enough and tall enough that I felt I needed to mow and went to the garage to get the lawnmower. It wasn’t there.
I stewed about that for about a week, remembering when all those strangers had traipsed through my yard looking at the river and probably inspecting my garage! I remembered that the plug to the overhead had been hanging down a bit lower than usual one morning. The more I thought about it, the more I was certain that the sound I heard in the night the week before must have been “them” stealing my lawnmower and “they” had probably unplugged the door to keep the light off once they had raised the door. They probably pulled the door down manually to close it then redid the plug and used the side door to escape after taking the mower.
I could not find my checkbook.
The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that the noise the night before had been “them” back to trying to steal my snow blower! I security-ed up the place. I checked the locks on the front and side doors, fixed the lock to the back door and made certain the garage was closed. I bought one of those motion-sensitive lights for the side of the garage. I called the bank and police about the checkbook and began to lock the house and close the garage.
I complained to my folks and my brothers about “them.”
I purchased and had delivered a brand new lawnmower and the day it was delivered, I mowed the whole lawn. As I shut it off and pushed it back up the driveway to the garage, my sister Trudy stopped by. She said “Gee, Pat. Mom said someone stole your lawnmower. Did they really take it out of Chris’ play fort where you put it to have it out of the way for the winter?”
They had not. I then had one beautiful mower one year old and one only one mowing old.
I had found my checkbook.
I also had the security light. Tom and Susan and kids came up that weekend and Tom installed the light on Sunday afternoon.
Tom called Monday morning to ask how it was working and I was embarrassed to say I hadn’t checked it yet. I promised to check it Monday night. I forgot until Midnight. I was in my long blue robe and we were in the middle of the ever-present thunderstorm of that spring but I had a matching umbrella and knew I needed to tell Tom how well the light worked so I went out.
The light was great; but when I walked back to the house, I found I was locked out of the house and closed out of the garage. I evaluated the porch and the sides of the house for what window I could break and have to explain the least. The windows had been replaced one by one with unbreakable Plexiglas as the boys tried baseball and other window-breaking pursuits. By walking around the house, I had caused the light to come on again. It was working well.
I slipped my hand in the cracked side door to the garage to reach the button and raised the overhead door. I thought I might find tools to pry up a window. Then I realized that when someone steals your lawnmower, you stop keeping your tools in the garage and they were all safe and dry in the house. I did find a shovel and carried it back to see if I could pry up the window on the porch. The light worked well, again.
I had painted that window shut 17 years ago and it was never going to open again. I only wounded it with the shovel. I took the shovel back to the garage. The light flashed. It occurred to me that whatever security the light might have provided was probably neutralized by its continued flashing on and off to alert someone that I was out in the yard in the downpour in my robe with a matching umbrella at 12:15 a.m.
I searched the car and found a strange rounded screw driver. It worked well enough for me to pry the lock and open the door to the house. I sat down on the carpet in the soaking robe with the sopping umbrella and the strange screw driver and laughed myself sillier.
When I recovered from the laughter, I re-secured the garage and house. The light continued to work well. When Tom called, we both laughed.
It seems that for me safety and security have more to do with love and laughter than with lights and locks.
