I Got Cased

Last week, Ben Hallett was visiting for the night. He was in town for a couple days and we spent some time together. We watched Ocean's 13.* We played football in the dark. We talked about lights. It was pleasant.

*I liked Ocean's 13. I also liked Ocean's 11. I like to pretend that Ocean's 12 never happened.

Then the bright lights started. I caught the glare of some sort of industrial flashlight through my window. After my retinas thawed,* I peered back out the window and saw a guy seriously casing my home. Dude was peering in windows, looking for God-knows-what. This was a source of some consternation.

*I actually used to have a label called "Molten Retinas." I deleted it because I thought, "I'll never use that one again." Who knew?

As my vision slowly returned, I noticed a police car in the driveway. So, it was a cop. This provided a lesser level of consternation; though I was still fairly consternated.

The cop banged on my door and asked me if I lived here. I said yes, and he explained that they had received a call that drifters had inhabited this empty house. I said, "Nope, I've got furniture and everything."

He said it was good enough for him, and said he hoped he hadn't inconvenienced me.

Let's visit that again. It was 3:00 a.m. I was standing at the front door - in my underwear - and the policeman said, "I hope this wasn't an inconvenience." Now let me get this out of the way: I respect law enforcement, and the guy did the right thing. But to pretend that it somehow wasn't an inconvenience? I'd say we're past that.