Stop, Drop, and Hide Under a Blanket

If someone is coming up your driveway, the obvious action that you need to take is to hide from them. My sister and I did this all the time growing up. I was reminded of these antics last Saturday night when I was at Jessy's house watching Robots on TV. Jess was working at her desk making dog collars and every time a commercial came on, Travis would change the channel back to football. We heard a car door shut outside.

"Somebody's here." Jess said. "Quick, hide!"

I laughed and we continued to joke about when we were children left home alone in our country house. Sometimes I think Travis has no idea who he married. He sure learns a lot about his wife's quirks when I'm around.

Jessamy and I grew up in the boondocks. Our private road was a half mile long and made of gravel, which made for bumpy bicycle rides. Our house sat tucked safely on the other side of the hill, nestled among mighty oak and fir trees.

People didn't drive to our house often. If an unfamiliar person made his way to our house, it was either someone who was A) lost or B) there to rob or murder us. My mother would leave us for an hour or so when she had to go to town and buy groceries or whatever and Jess and I would be in the living room playing Legos or building model horse barns out of cardboard boxes when we would spot a car driving down to the house. "Quick, someone's coming!" One of us would yell.

We would then make sure the door was locked, flip off all the lights, and go hide. Most of the time we would hide in my parents' bedroom and spy out their window, because there was a giant bush in the way and it prevented us from being spotted from the kidnappers.

[You better believe when my sister and I finally attended public school, we were experts at the armed intruder drills. We dropped to the floor out of the line of sight of the window and spoke not a word.]

We sat breathlessly listening for the knock at the door. It would come, and we would wait, wondering if the person was going to start picking the lock in order to get in and steal my mother's Cherished Teddies collection. When we heard the car start up again and leave, we breathed a sigh of relief but waited an extra minute before emerging. You know, in case it was a fake-out.

It may be interesting for you to know that I still do this at my house, even though I am a grown woman. I will be sitting at my desk (which is near the front window) typing an e-mail to an associate, when I will see someone coming down the lane. I might immediately drop to the floor and army crawl behind the couch since I don't want to be spotted. Or maybe I won't have enough time to get out of sight from the window, so what I'll do is lay on the floor and throw a blanket over me real quick. Because a long green lump isn't suspicious at all.

I don't really know why I still do this. Habit, I guess. Or maybe I just want the element of surprise. When the FedEx guy drops off my package, I want to be able to pop out from under the window and yell "Ha! I can sign for that!" Or maybe when someone is breaking into my window, I want to throw the blanket back, reveal my face, and terrify the intruder.

Basically, I blame my repeated viewings of Home Alone. I've never heated up my door knob, put pokey things under the window, or tar and nailed the steps coming up from the basement, but I fully have a protocol, should the need ever arise. I am not going to post it here, because for all I know there is a stalker who reads my blog everyday in hopes that I will reveal the location of my home and the hours in which I am alone.

I'm telling you right now, it's probably not worth your time to kidnap or rob me. My computer is a desktop from 2004, I own a very limited DVD collection, and the nicest thing I have are my couches which weigh as much as a baby elephant, so getting away with them wouldn't be easy. If you were to want them, you'd have to at least bring a U-haul because there's no way they're fitting in a pick up truck. And good luck trying to back that U-haul out of the driveway--you'll be sandwiched. But I wouldn't put it past a thief to ram through my wooden fence, mow over the neighbor's garden, and make a break for it in the opposite direction.

You don't want to kidnap me because I'd ask you for an interview on your life of crime, so that I could blog about it. Plus, I'd want to get my phone and Tweet about it as it was happening. My update would probably be something like "In the trunk of a car blindfolded, but don't worry, even though I can't see I can still text via voice commands on my smart phone." Only wait, I don't actually have a smart phone (another reason it's not worth it to rob me).