The other evening Gregoire and I were leaving our house to go out for dinner. Standing or should I say, lurking, at the end of our back alley was a man. He could not have looked more suspicious if he'd tattooed "UP TO NO GOOD" on his forehead. He was in his late twenties, dressed in scruffy dark pants and a jacket, with a black hood covering his head. He was trying to conceal his face. On top of that, he was shifting from side to side, had a brooding appearance and would not look us in the eye. He seemed to be waiting for something but it wasn't clear what.
With Son of Sam loitering about, I felt uncomfortable just driving off. I had visions of coming back to a home with smashed windows and our things strewn around the house. For sure, he was going to swipe our prized Haagen-Dazs chocolate icecream from the fridge.
Gregoire said, "What can you do about it anyway? It is not a crime to look shifty." OK but I think its an offence to loiter in alleys behind houses but I'm not sure if the police would come if we called them. We drove off anyway.
For the first part of dinner, I was nervously toying with my food, thinking about someone rummidging through our possessions at home. Then I decided that I'm being judgemental based on someone's appearance, and I was rushing to unwarranted conclusions. I dug into my lamb souvlaki with gusto and forgot about the potential Law and Order episode being played out for real on our street.
We finished dinner and returned home. Son of Sam was gone. Our house was fine, no signs of a break-in. All was quiet.
We live in a neighbourhood that for the most part is ok, but we do occasionally see drug dealers on the corner down the street. They arrive in expensive looking cars, do quick exchanges through the car window and equally as quickly, drive off. A neighbour writes down the license plate numbers of these vehicles when he sees them and gives them to the cops. We see drug addicts waiting for a hit. We see people hanging out around the blog train station whose appearance and shifty demeanour make you feel uncomfortable. Sometimes somebody comes down the alley who is definitely not on our Christmas card list.
We've had one incident in three years where someone broke into our home and stole some petty cash. After that I wanted to put up electric fences and install ballistic missiles to protect ourselves but the feeling gradually went away. The thing is you can't spend your life worrying as to whether they will rob you or murder you in your bed. We may get burgled again at some point and there is a remote chance we might get harmed. We take reasonable precautions to make our property secure and keep ourselves safe from harm. It is not worth losing sleep over a crime that may not happen.
Anyone else got thoughts on this?
1 comment:
I'm always suspicious of guys in hoodies (especially those who lurk). But you're right, you can't let yourself get all paranoid. Just be aware and take care.
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