Home Invaders

One of the most difficult adjustments I've had to make since moving from Manhattan is to reprogram myself in the area of imminent physical harm. The other evening as I sat upstairs I heard the garage door open and awaited the sound of devoted partner's feet coming up the stairs. About 3 minutes passed and I heard nothing. I first wondered if I had in fact heard the garage door open, and assuring myself that I had, decided, almost conclusively, that bad men had gained entrance to the house and were, at that moment, plotting my dismemberment. In truth, devoted partner had opened the door and then walked two houses down to talk to our landlady (making me wonder why he opened the door at all since he hadn't even pulled the car in).

Our landscaper is a nice guy; he overcharges us, but I think that's mostly the fault of our zipcode. Still, when I'm home alone and the truck pulls up and I see unfamiliar men puttering about my lawn, I do still imagine the possibility of being dismembered.

Recently, devoted partner has worked some late nights. And it's dark out in the suburbs. And things make noises. And I have seriously heard very possibly bad, breaking and entering sounds on these late nights.

But I know that while a lot of my paranoia will stand me in the good stead of self-preservation, the remaining bits are unattractively lunatic. So this morning, when the guys showed up to repair the leak in our water pipe, I opened the door, let them in the basement, and returned upstairs to take a shower. In the room with the fewest potential weapons (eyeliner and curling iron?). I finished my shower and got ready for work, knowing they would still be in my house. It is true, my landlady would be coming by, but she wasn't there yet. I simply trusted that a) they weren't planning to steal from us and b) even if they were, they were going to be sadly disappointed with what we had on offer. And I left.

This is how it's done in the suburbs. Which is pretty bizarre coming from a background where neither I nor my parents ever let our superintendents have copies of our keys.

I did however, just in case, wear my grandmother's ring to work today.