I locked my doors this morning..

...for the first time in a really long time.

Safe? No.

Have I been guilty of not doing it?  Yes.

Is that changing now? Yes.

Reason:
Last night I was at mom and dad's house still talking to mom and their neighbor knocked on the door.  Dad let him in and I overheard them talking about another neighbor being scared because she lives alone.  Well duh, I live alone so my ears tuned in. 

Apparently this woman was out walking her two dogs, pitbulls.  Once she got the first walk over with and got back home to switch dogs, she saw a man acting strange.  There is a church that is next door to this woman's house (which is behind my parents' house) and this truck had parked there and was watching the woman.  She said he began walking toward her (she thinks he didn't know she was looking at him too..) until he saw that she WAS in fact looking and that she had a pitbull with her. 

At this point the man turned around and "acted" as if he were looking at the church building.  When in fact, he is NOT a member of that church.  Or at least never attends service there.  

[Living in a small neighborhood all your life, you know the people that belong and the people that don't..]

It was enough to spook her, so she went to tell someone about it and as you can imagine news spread in the neighborhood last night.   She also went on to tell us that she had gotten a text message from another girl who lives closer to my house saying she had someone come to her door trying to sell home security systems.  She wasn't interested and told him through the door that she wasn't, at which point he left.  But apparently (and it might be hearsay..) there has been three rapes that started out with someone trying to sell home security systems. 

All I know is that on my drive home to my house last night my eyes were PEELED and I was watching for the truck she described, or any other strange vechicle. Then when I got home I was terrified to get out of my car and go into my own house.  All I could think was how I never lock my back door and someone could be in there.....waiting on me.   Anyone who knows me IRL and has been to my house at night can testify that I live in a black hole.  You can't see anything with that field around my house.  ((When I was a kid, I couldn't even stand trick or treating down there... THAT BAD.)) 

Well I got inside, checked under every bed, every closet, etc.  I felt goofy doing it but I've also seen too many CSI episodes. :)  Nothing was there so I made the dogs come on and I went to my bedroom and locked myself in there. 

Aside from Reagan acting weird and barking at nothing, everything was fine.  But was my head racing with bad thoughts?  Yes.  

So when I left this morning I was responsible and locked my doors.  Now when I go home for lunch I'll probably walk into the door thinking it's just shut.

Oh the joys of living alone.