Yesterday we had a visitor late in the afternoon. Buttercup opens the door and there is a man standing there. I am trying to keep the dogs in the house, so I let her handle the situation. Come to find out he was new in the neighborhood. Great – welcome aboard! He is just out of jail – er…not so welcome and hide the silverware please. He wondered if we had any odd jobs he could do like rake leaves. Our front yard is a desert – 18 feet straight down of nothing but sand. Rake? The front yard? I don’t think it has ever needed raking. But the front door was wide open the whole time he was doing his pitch and he had a nice view of the inside of our house. If he wasn’t rehabilitated I am sure our house would be the first on his list to ‘hit’ what with the big TV, stereo equipment, speakers and my grandmother's wooden spool collection. For the rest of the evening I wasn’t all that comfortable and told Tobey we needed to be sure to set the alarm, just in case. Need less to say: we didn't.

Fast-forward to 1 a.m. and Baby Girl is going crazy in the living room barking her fool head off. So I get up, I told Tobey that something was wrong and Baby was barking. His response: *snore*. So I get up and tiptoe to the hallway where I can see the front door. The dog is still barking and Tobey is still snoring. All the lights were off in the house except for the lights in the china cabinet and it gave off enough light to see. I stand in the hall just looking at the door and Baby continued to bark. Then I see it: a shadow passes in front of the glass in the door. I holler again for Tobey and he gets up and stands with me in the hallway and I explain to him what is going on. Then a few moments later the doorbell rings. Now both dogs are going insane and I look at Tobey who is dressed in his boxers pajamas and he heads back to the bedroom. I have no idea what he is doing; so I go to the door. We have a keyless entry pad and no security chain or peephole, not that a chain would stop someone from getting inside.

I get to door and ask, “Who is it?”

Weirdo-at-the-door: “Is Casey there?”

Mrs. Ohtobe: “There is no one here by that name.”

Weirdo-at-the-door: *asking someone that is with them what the name of the person is they are looking for* “Is Kat there?”

*ohmygod, there are two of 'em*

Mrs. Ohtobe: There is no one here by that name and it is 1 a.m.!

They leave. By now Frodo and Buttercup are standing in their skivvies in the kitchen and Tobey is in the living room. The dogs have finally stopped barking and we all go back to bed. Except I can’t sleep now and I asked Tobey why he didn’t go to the door instead of going back to the bedroom. He said he told me he was going to get his glasses. Glasses? Why?

“So I could see who it was when I opened the door.”

*Gasp* You can fill in the rest with your imagination but I was none to happy that this brilliant man-o-mine was going to just open the door to strangers at 1 a.m. after we had our jailhouse visitor earlier in the afternoon. In his defense, he thinks that if someone is going to rob ya blind they aren’t going to ring the doorbell. Somewhat surprisingly, I disagree with him. Duh, eh.

~ame