'tis the Season for assholes to try to ruin my goodwill toward men.

On Sunday afternoon, I was chillin' in my living room and looked up to see through my window that two police officers were leading a K9 through my front yard.

WTF, man?

"Um, Jimi, why are there cops with a dog in our front yard?"

I had a conversation with Angie a few weeks back about how nice it is to be one of those people who sees a cop and doesn't immediately think "Oh shit, RUN!"  She told a story of how she'd been letting her dogs out one morning and a US Marshall came around the corner, and instead of "Oh fuck" she thought, "Hmm, wonder who he's looking for?"

I consider myself to be part of that group with her - I don't automatically assume the po-po is after me when I see them near.  However, when I looked out my window and saw two officers in full uniform leading a dog, I was a little taken aback.

After they let their dog take a nice shit in our yard, they moved on down the street, then up the block on the other side and around again.  I figured maybe they were looking for someone - they certainly weren't looking for me or mine.

Today, I came home to a letter from a neighbor, sandwiched between some Christmas gifts recently delivered via UPS:

I am one of your neighbors, and I live at (the house down the block from yours).  


Sunday, about 3:00 in the afternoon, my wife and daughter came home from a Christmas shopping trip.  They parked the car in our driveway and started getting bags out of the trunk of the car.  They had their backs turned to the street, and were talking to each other.  A young man approached them from behind, threatedned them with a gun and asked them for money, and then ran up (my street) toward (awesome park across the road).  The police responded quickly and professionally, but are not likely to find the robber.  Both my wife and my daughter are unhurt, but we are upset this could happen in our neighborhood.

He goes on to say that he's writing this letter to make sure we're all aware of what's going on in our neighborhood, and invites us all to his home for a neighborhood open house on Sunday to discuss the situation and what we can do to protect our 'hood.

Holy fucksticks, this is terrifying!  I feel safe in this home - I come home from work and leave the back door wide open, I take Finn for walks and leave the doors unlocked, I don't lock my car doors.

When we lived on Camp Street, some ya-hoo, the week of Thanksgiving, threw a brick through our kitchen window and relieved us of two laptops, two cell phones, and a shotgun.  Jimi has had nightmares about the horrible things that could've happened with that shotgun, which belonged to his late father.  I was pissed that our shit had been stolen, and that someone could be so fucking brazen as to throw a motherfucking BRICK through OUR window and come into OUR home and take OUR things!  And I felt violated because the perp had touched of our stuff, like the clothes in the closet and the sheets on the bed.  From that day, until we moved out a few years later, I hid our things before we left for work - anything of value was hidden in a new place each morning.  Some days that really sucked, because my memory sucks, and you haven't seen a pissed off Natalie until you've seen one who can't remember where she hid the fucking laptop.

Thank goodness for Finn.  At least he serves as a good deterrent to any would-be invaders.  That, and the samurai ninja warriors with laser guns who live in the basement - they'll cut a motherfucker down.

Be careful out there, peeps.  Assholes are everywhere, and some of them want to steal your shit because they're too fucking lazy to get jobs and earn some nice things for themselves.  And remember, if you are faced with one of those assholes, unless you're AT LEAST a black belt in something, it's probably a good idea to just let them have your credit cards and your gucci bag and your kid's tickle-me-elmo - they make more of those things, but there's only one of you.

Be safe!