OMG!!! SOMEONE TRIED TO BREAK INTO MY HOUSE WHILE I WAS HOME!!!

Last night around 10:30 as I was playing on televisionwithoutpity.com, my power went off for about 5 seconds. "No big deal," I thought. "It's 8000 degrees and the power sometimes goes off in the summer." Plus, my internet service was not interrupted and I wasn't watching TV so I wasn't super inconvenienced. About 5 minutes later, it happened again. Then 5 minutes after that, it happened AGAIN, but this time the power stayed off.

It was late enough that I figured I should probably try to go to bed anyway, so I lit a candle and went to my room and got into bed. As I was attempting to read by the annoying flickering candle light, I heard someone open my front security screen door. WTF!?! Then I heard voices and saw a flashlight going around outside my room. This actually made me feel better because I live directly diagonal from the HOA president/ resident busybody, so I figured he was just out checking the power and talking to someone from the power company.

Regardless, I got up and double locked my security door and went back to bed. A few minutes later, I heard someone knock on my door, so I got up, put on my jeans and went to the door with candle in hand. I looked out the peephole and it was a cop, so I felt safe enough to open my front door, especially with the barrier of the now locked security door between us, in case he was a landshark dressed as a cop.

First he asked me if I had just locked the door (yes...duh) and then he asked me if I had heard anything about 15 minutes ago, which I had not. Apparently my behind me neighbor had heard someone trying to break into my or his back bedroom window so he made a noise or turned on a light, or something happened so that he saw a guy running away from our windows after unsuccessfully attempting to break in (so far), and immediately called the cops. Who then tried to open my door… The hell?

Anyhow, after I told the cop I hadn’t heard anything and I thought it was weird because my house was pretty quiet (no TV, no music) I commented the only weird thing was that my power was out. My genius cop said “That explains the candle,” and then I asked if he had noticed if anyone else’s power was off (because I had noticed earlier that the streetlights were still on). We both looked around and saw light everywhere and concluded it was just mine. THEN he asked me if I had paid my bill!!! After I said of course! He suggested I call the power company and he left.

Normally I get sooooo mad when the phone company drops off 9 pounds of phonebook that I just immediately recycle, however in the event that your power goes out thus cutting off your internet, it is REALLY handy to have at least one book (hopefully not too out of date) to find the power company’s phone number. Fortunately the power company’s number hasn’t changed since 2004. A very nice lady answered, got my information, agreed it was weird only my power was off, assured me that they wouldn’t be doing tests at 11 PM and were not experiencing any outages, and then suggested I go OUTSIDE to the check the switch on the main breaker box. I politely informed her that there was no way in hell I was going outside alone as a cop had just come to my door to tell me that a homicidal maniac (possibly dressed as a cop as I now realize he NEVER identified himself, and did I mention he OPENED MY DOOR!?!) had just tried to break into my house. She understood, but said they couldn’t send anybody out because it was private property or something and asked if I could call the cop back to escort me to the breaker box. I didn’t like that idea any better, plus the box was in a well lit area and I knew that at least my next door neighbor was home, awake with adrenaline and electricity, and would surely come to my aid if I screamed.

I had no idea which box was the breaker box, but I noticed that the door on the box next to my air conditioner unit (which was not the breaker box I was looking for) had been mangled and was hanging open on one of two badly twisted hinges. Who hates my electricity this much!? After trying unsuccessfully to open two tightly screwed shut boxes, I finally found the correct breaker, which had been switched to the off position. I flipped it up and heard my AC hum to life. The power lady told me that sometimes kids in her neighborhood think it is funny to go around turning people’s power off, which I think she may had just made up to make me feel safer, but it was nice just the same.

As I was walking back to my front door (with the lady who had all of my information and instructions to call 911 still on the phone), I ran into the neighbor who had called the cops. As I suspected/ hoped, he had come outside when he heard noises coming from the spot of the attempted break in and we talked for a minute. He told me that not only had he seen a guy running away, but he also saw a pick-up truck that didn’t look familiar to him (that was now gone with the guy), so he got the license plates and gave them to the cop as well. I think my neighbor might make a better cop than the real one! He even had the courtesy/ mindset to not scare the $&@# out of me and introduced himself even though we had seen each other before.

I went inside, triple locked the door, and profusely thanked the power lady. Then I turned on every light in my house and went around double checking the locks on my windows. Then I got together a pile of things like my glasses, keys, and purse and set them by a pair of flip flops that were pointed towards the front door so I could run away at a moment’s notice. Then I called the police to tell them that I was pretty sure that the guy attempting to break in had cut my power 1) in case they had some kind of CSI type case being built on the power-outage prowler or something and 2) to prove to the cop I pay my bills! He was very friendly and lied assured me that he and the other “cops on that beat” (he seriously said that!) would amp up the drive bys in my neighborhood. This could actually be true, because I did answer the door in a fairly skimpy sleep top. Finally I climbed into bed and at some point fell asleep with the lights still blazing.

This morning before I went to work, I hid the very few jewelry valuables I own, took all my cash and S.S. card to work with me, and bid farewell to my two poor cats that I am pretty sure will be decapitated or microwaved by the time I get home today because the power-outage prowler will be so mad I have nothing good to steal, he will take it out on my babies. I did instruct them to hide in the closet or under the bed if a stranger comes in. In related news, I am now accepting applications for burly roommates with a strong knowledge and possession of firearms. Must like cats.

UPDATE: I don't know if I am just incredibly naive or incredibly stupid, but as I was driving home from work today I realized the guy trying to break in was probably not interested in any of my material possessions, if you know what I mean, which I am sure you do and probably figured out since the title of this post while I was busy fearing for my Tiffany bracelet. Anyway, when I got home the same police officer from the night before was just sitting in his car in front of my house writing reports and looking intimidating to any wrong doers, which I thought was awesome! Even more awesome was that he came to my door and told me that after he had discussed everything with his co-workers today, they decided he should write up a better report on slightly trumped up charges so that if they catch him they can prosecute him, AND after he was off his shift for the night, he was sending another cop to sit out front and write reports (he's there now) so I will be able to sleep tonight! Finally he talked to the neighbor who called the police in the first place as well as the HOA president and the head of our neighborhood watch program who lives with the HOAp and they are all going to be even more on the lookout than they are normally, which is almost impossible as they were all pretty on top of the bad guy last night. He also told me what kinds of more secure locks to get for my windows and suggested a padlock for my breaker box. Overall I really feel like he went above and beyond to make me feel as safe as possible considering. So the moral of my story is fake boobs* really do pay for themselves in more ways than one.

*I got fake boobs in April**.

**I haven't been able to blog for so long because something bad happened with blogger and NONE of my passwords or usernames for anything would work and every time I tried to request that they send the information to me, they would just send me on a cyclical and non-helpful journey until finally I must have hit the correct number (734) of requests for help and they gave in and sent the magical one that worked. I have lots to tell you!