Dude, You Can't Come in My House!

Yesterday was a very, very long day.
It started bright and early with my loading the kids in the car and driving to Pigeon Forge to meet my frind Tara, her children and her mother to stroll around Dollywood for the day and ride kiddie rides. We had a great time (and great company) but by the time I got back into town at 5:30 we were all worn out.

I swung by my house to pick up my brother Artemas, then ran to the LYS for another skein of Plymouth Yarn's Jeannie (this time in almost white for a baby sweater) and some Lustra in the most gorgeous just before dawn blue color. Then walmart and home.

Tony has worked 12hr shifts all week, getting home around 3am. Last night was the last night of a long week of not seeing him more than a couple hours and that wears on my quickly, I tend to get pretty depressed and sad by the end of a week of this. What can I say? I miss him. He called at 10:30 and said he only had about an hour more to work and that he'd be home "early." Mom called and said she missed Artemas and they were coming to get him since Tony was going to have the weekend off afterall and I wouldn't need his help with the kids during a trip to Greeneville for the Bowman family reunion today.

Mom and Dad got here about 1, about 2 minutes before Tony came home with a dozen roses for me. Beautiful, gorgeous pink roses with darker pink stripes (think pink on pink zebras). We had a hard time getting the baby to sleep but we finally did and we watching some TV together when at about 10 minutes til 3am we heard our screen door open. Our screen door is very hard to open and doesn't get knocked about by the wind.

Tony turned the porch light on and looked thru the peep-hole in the door to see a kid standing on our porch, not looking at the door or the porch light but just staring off into space. Tony opened the door and asked if he could help him, which the reply was "No." Tony said, would you mind telling me what you're doing here? The guy says, I'm just gonna sit.

So Tony told him he had to get off our porch and out of our yard and go on his way down the street. Then the guy started over toward the deck part of our porch, picked up some weed and ant killer and started to walk off with them. Tony told him to put them down and the guy walked off into our back yard. Tony came back in, told me to call the police and grabbed a 1000 candle mini-flash light he has and went out into the back yard.

I must say I was impressed with the response time for our local police department. We haven't had to call them in the 5 years we've lived in Clinton but it seriously only took them about 2 minutes to arrive at our house, on Friday night of a holiday weekend.

Our neighbors have some railroad beam/fence post square planters along our property lines which have roses and other flowers planted in them. Tony said when he got around to the back yard the guy was trying to lift one of them out of the ground and then it looked like he was picking things up and putting them in his mouth. Weird.
He wandered back into the front yard and Tony followed him up on to the porch, again. Tony said when he shined his flash light on the guy's eyes his pupils did not dilate at all. Very strung out and high on something, not pot and definitely not drunk (or just drunk). I was watching out the front window and the guy was shirtless and appeared to be in his late teens (he later told the cops he was 17) and was about 6'3 and 170 lbs. Nothing compaired to my 6'0 240lb husband but I was still really scared and to my embarrasment, crying to the 911 operator.

When the police arrived (one in a car and one on a motorcycle) they asked him what he was doing and he said nothing. They asked for ID, he didn't have any; he did tell his age. They asked where he lived and he said "Clinton" (duh). When they asked his address he said he didn't know, it was on his mailbox. The motorcycle cop (a big guy about 6'5) took him by the jaw and told him not to mouth off while the other officer cuffed him and they put him in the car. They got the story from Tony, asked for his ID, etc.
What we all think is that the kid either got high and wandered off, or was partying with people he thinks are "friends" and they put him out of the car near our street. He didn't have any idea what was going on really, a real "no one's home" case when you tried to talk to him except for when he decided to try to get mouthy with the police.

The officers said this was the first call they'd had to our street in 8 years. I always say Tony's the exception to every rule but I wish this was one case I was wrong. I told him, We've lived here a MONTH and you're already screwing up the neighborhood's averages!

I am so thankful, it could have been so much worse! Tony could not have been home, or the kid could have been one of those that gets mean, dangerous and angry when strung out, or he could have been armed. As it was he was just lost. The Lord was surely watching over us and I am greatful that no one was hurt, not even the guy (because if he had tried to actually come in the house Tony surely would have hurt him.)

However... I'm thinking of buying a gun. LOL!
(Will post pics of luscious yarn, baby sweater in progress, kids at Dollywood, etc in a couple days)