bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do?

we live in a suburb of minneapolis and, granted, our place is on a busy road so we see a lot of strange stuff. but in the past five months i've had to call 911 three different times. doesn't that seem like a lot?

and i'm not overreacting, either. the first time, i woke up at 3:30am to use the bathroom and there were tail lights shining in on me. keep in mind, right outside the bathroom window IS THE YARD, not the driveway or road. i kept the lights out and went to a better vantage point to inspect. oh, by the way, my husband (boyfriend at the time!) was out of town and i was home alone.

when i looked outside, i saw an suv stuck in our front yard, spinning their wheels in the muddy mess it had recently become with all the snow melting, while a couple other people were madly pushing to get the vehicle going. at the same time, another person came walking out of my garage toward the suv and i'm thinking, "holy shit, these freaks are here to rob and rape me and when they saw the light go on in the bathroom, they tried to high-tail it and got stuck"!

needless to say, that was my first 911 call.

as it turned out, it was the star tribune paper delivery person and they mistook our yard for our driveway. a rocket scientist, i'm sure, considering they'd been delivering papers without driving through our yard for like two months prior. here's what they left after the tow truck had to drag them out (and believe me, the picture, as usual, does not do it justice)...


the next get together with the police happened just about a week ago when we realized that somebody had waltzed into our unlocked (at the time) breezeway between the garage and home and stole hundreds of dollars worth of tools, not to mention tennis rackets (not that either of us has played in the last year). it's true, maybe we shouldn't have been keeping them out there, but the scary part is that that the cop said whoever did it probably just came in a grabbed the stuff while i was home alone! youch. that one hurts. not feeling quite as safe lately, needless to say...

and speaking of youch!, my most recent 911 call was to report domestic violence on the sidewalk in front of my house. look, if you don't want me to call the cops on you, then don't stand 20 feet in front of my picture window and punch your girlfriend (or whatever) in the face.

on the one hand, i'm hoping my mom never sees this or she will lock me an attic somewhere to keep all the evil in life away from me, and on the other hand, i'm hoping she sees this so that she understands that no matter where you live-city or suburbs-shit happens.

i used to live right in the city and when my brownstone caught on fire and was a blaze at three 'o' clock in the morning, the only thing that woke me up and got me out and saved my life was a local homeless woman running back and forth outside my bedroom window on the sidewalk screaming "the building's on fire! get out, get out!". after the whole incident happened, and the smoke was clearing (literally and figuratively) my cats and i even got to be interviewed for the evening news. i still have the tape and watch it once in a while.

i think i felt safer there. at least i had someone watching out for me. here in the burbs, it's every man for himself...