Monday, September 29, 2008

Darrin the Brave...and a bit stupid

To start the story off, this last Thursday our renter's car got broken into for the second time. Well, not exactly broken into. But that's a story I'll get to after I tell you about the first time their car got broken into.
A while ago, when their car was parked on the street, his car got broken into, glass shattered, and his whole A/C and stereo unit was taken. Nicely and neatly done though. Not torn out, but unscrewed. How very kind of them.
They were very worried about it happening again and we felt sorry for them. And that's when we let them park their cars in the driveway so it wouldn't happen again.
Then on Thursday morning, after Melanie (the wife) had left for work, his car got robbed I guess you could say. They didn't have to break in because one of the back doors were accidentally left unlocked. So I guess that they checked all the doors to see if it were unlocked first. Everything was torn out of his glove box and scattered. But Shane (the husband) said that all they were able to take that was of any value was a small baggie full of change.
That same morning, Darrin and I walked out the door at about 8:30am and there was a gym bag just sitting on our porch. A blue speedo gym bag. We had no idea who's it was. Darrin opened it to find just that, extremely sweaty gym attire. After Shane told us that his car had been gotten into, we kind of assumed that it was the gym bag of whoever got into his car. That they were in too much of a hurry to remember it. However, there was nothing in the bag to identify whoever the bag belongs to.
All of this information is leading up to the story I'm about to tell of Darrin the Brave...and Stupid. Another side note is that we keep our bedroom window open pretty much all of the time to keep cooler air flowing through the house.

I headed to bed at about 11:30 last night. Darrin couldn't sleep and so he went into his office to work some more on my website. Nothing unusual, right? Until I woke abruptly to the sound of LOUD yelling and screaming coming from what sounded like the elementary school right by our home. It was 3:30am. I am sure I wasn't the only one to be awakened by it. Voices yelling "what do you think you're doing?", "What are you doing here?", "Get back here", etc.
I immediately sat up and my heart was beating a million miles an hour. I yelled Darrin's name to the office. No answer. I called his phone. It was sitting right next to me on the bedside table. I ran to the office. Darrin wasn't there. And the front door was open. You can't imagine the racing thoughts I had. I thought that he was in a fight with some guy, that someone would have a gun, or a knife. That he would be killed. I didn't know what to do. Just as I was about to call the police, Darrin came stomping through the front door.
As it turns out, he heard a little sound, not sure where it was coming from and looked out the front window to see if he could see anything. Sure enough, there was a punk who was just getting done with our neighbors car (Darrin couldn't tell if he'd managed to break into it or not), and he was headed to our car. So, Darrin's first impression was to go after the kid. WITH NO CELL PHONE, NO FORM OF PROTECTION, AND NO TELLING HIS WIFE! Anyway, so he chases this kid into the school parking lot and through the grounds yelling these things I had woke to. And the kid was yelling back, "I'm sorry man...I SCREWED (using a different, four letter word) UP!!" and kept repeating himself.
When I heard stomping footsteps coming toward our house, I was waiting there more terrified than I think I have EVER been in my life. What if it was the other guy? What would I do? Scared out of my pants, Darrin comes through that front door and says, "I sure scared him!" I was so happy to see him, but at the same time I wanted to SMACK him! How stupid could he be? He had no idea what this kid had on him. Why didn't he bring his cell phone? Or just call the police?

Needless to say, I was glad he made it safe. It took me a LONG time to get back to sleep after that. Racing thoughts kept racing. Darrin said it was just some dumb high school kid, but those dumb high school kids can still be dangerous, right?
Shane came running up the stairs after Darrin got home wondering what on earth was going on. He woke abruptly to the yelling and screaming too. After Darrin told him, I believe that he called the police and now they will be patrolling around our house at about 3:30. Thank goodness.
But everyone is safe and sound and let's just hope that kid never comes back.

I love you Darrin! And I never knew you were so brave! Now that's a man! Just DON'T DO IT AGAIN!

1 comment:

Heidi Hamilton said...

Wow - what a story. And I can't believe he actually went out there. Well... I can, but... I can't. Geez. That would have freaked me out too.

(P.S. I won't say ITYS about the breaking into the cars thing)

LOVE YOU! Glad you're both OK!