cat burglar

After my first OC TiVo experience, I was almost too excited to sleep. No commercials! I could rewind it to catch Seth's witty lines! Too good to be true!

However, to sleep I did fall, only to be awoken a short time later by someone trying to forcefully open my side door. Some notes on this door:

• We NEVER use this door. I don't think I've ever walked through the door.
  
• The storm door on this entrance is tied shut, because on several occasions the wind at our lovely Beachfront Home has been so strong it blows open and forces me to call my roommate in a panic, claming someone is trying to break in.
  
• This door is right outside my bedroom door (1st floor bedroom).
  

Anyway, someone was trying to break in, I was sure of it. I had JUST watched a particularly disturbing episode of It Takes a Thief. Did I deadbolt all the doors? I wondered. I snuck out of bed and checked all three. Yes, deadbolts and handles locked all around. So, I took a course of action natural when your roommate is a cop: I called my roommate in a panic and claimed someone was trying to break in.

HotCop: Hey, what's up?
Me: I think someone is trying to get in the side door.
HotCop: Are you sure it's not just the wind? [I could hear her doubt.]
Me: I'm pretty sure. It sounds like [insert noise here].
HotCop: Do you want me to dispatch someone to check for a prowler?
Me: I don't know...

NOW, to be clear-- I called her in the hopes she would say "Don't worry, I'm on my way home with my blue lights, siren and firearm." Instead, she dispatched one of her policy academy buddies.

Not two minutes later, I saw their bright alley lights shining into our backyard and heard one of the FOUR officers who showed up checking our external doors.

As the officers checked our house, I was on the phone with my roommate again, and heard her talking into her radio. No, this is [Whatever number] it's my roommate and she doesn't want to come to the door. Ok. She told me she'd call back,

In the two minutes before she called me back I convinced myself they had found someone lurking in our yard. They wanted to break in, I thought, I was being quiet so they didn't know I was here [this despite the two cars in our driveway/sideyard]. I hadn't heard the noise the whole time the officers were outside, nor since they'd left.

Even after HotCop called me back and assured me the officerS didn't find anything wrong, I was still scared. Go back to sleep, she said, I'll be home soon with my firearm. Ok, thanks for sending people. And why is your cat howling like crazy?

I laid in bed with the covers pulled all the way up to my chin. (Pulling them over my head would have been far too juvenile).

Then I heard the noise again. I was far more awake and coherent at that point, for obvious reasons. Man, I thought, that really sounds like it could be the door to the hall bathroom.[also right outside my bedroom door]

I gathered my couraged, walked (didn't sneak, like before) into the hall and opened the bathroom door.

HOWWWL, said Mean Ol' Sandy, as she came sprinting out of the bathroom, having been locked in for the past few hours, even as the cops came looking for her in the backyard.

Apparently, in my house, It Takes a Cat. Sigh.