Egad! Get up and close that damn back door…NOW!
Seriously: the Dawg and the Human just sat down to take in the morning slack — coffee mug in hand, computer atop lap — and it dawns on the Human: Do not sit there with the back door hanging open, dammit!!! Nay verily, not even if the screen door is closed and locked.
‘Cause, as we know, any clown and his/her little brother can kick or yank that screen open.
Sounds paranoid, eh? But I do hafta say: it feels more and more unsafe to me, living here in lovely Arizona. Especially in its (un)lovely cities.
Day or two ago, a Tucson woman was murdered at her home, apparently by a nut case. So…sitting around your house or patio taking in the morning air is decidedly NOT advised. Surely not around here.
So many of our fellow citizens are off the rails here in this crazy-making 21st Century — and it’s so easy for them (and us) to stock up on firearms — that really: You’d be nuts to loaf in your family room with the back door hanging open.
I never used to feel especially unsafe in my home, certainly not in the daylight hours. But lately that has changed…and I don’t think the change is a function of age.
No. It’s a function of the steadily growing insanity and violence around us. Not that humans haven’t always been crazy…but really, it does seem a lot more pronounced than it was, say, 20 or 30 years ago.
Sometimes I think I should move out of uptown Phoenix — surely the suburbs would be safer. When I mentioned that to a cop during the great home invasion adventure, he remarked that there aren’t any places in the Phoenix metropolitan area that can be regarded as safe.
Really…when you re-read the post I put up at Funny after that little adventure, you hafta ask yourself: Why am I still living here???
What the HELL is the matter with me that I haven’t moved somewhere else? Somewhere far, far from here! Really: this house should have been on the market the next day after that episode…
But…but…WHERE would I go that’s any better?
Sun City, that fine mausoleum on the west side?
Well, no: this kind of stuff happens out there. My mother lived in white-lipped terror all the time she and my father owned their Sun City manse. And I’m not interested in living in a ghetto for the aged and the cranky. No, thanks.
A box in the sky? One of the high-rise apartments along Central Avenue or in Scottsdale?
Well…I’ve lived in such a place. And…no thanks. Don’t wanna do that again. I’m just not in to communal living.
No communal living, eh? Well, then: how about back out to the ranch, just outside the wide spot in the road called Yarnell? Right up on the Rim…cool weather, lots of cows and sheep, plenty of room for the burglars to spread out comfortably?
Hm. Yeah, I did love the ranch. BUT: we didn’t live there 24/7. It was more of a weekend retreat for us. And y’know: I don’t think I would want to live out in the middle of nowhere 24/7. Besides, if a burglar/rapist/murderer can visit you in your city subdivision, what’s to keep him from visiting you on your remote ranch?
Basically…where there be humans, you be not safe.
Yeah: I’m afraid that’s a fact.
Or, alternatively: I’m afraid. That’s a fact.
😀