Saturday, August 1, 2009

We Wuz [Practically] Robbed

My nice plain and simple laptop table arrived yesterday and I am quite happy with it. Its contemporary little self is not a perfect match for my very girly room, with its lace and oak and floral prints. But that’s ok. It is light and unobtrusive and convenient and contributes to tidiness, so it qualifies as a winner.

I sat in the den last night putting it together, chatting with my friend Dan the Computer Genius while he installed the second hard drive in my laptop in as many weeks. Pleasant, quiet company, a sense of accomplishment with the table set-up, relief at the restoration of my laptop, it was the perfect evening for a geek like me. Although I am still cranky about the hard drive. But I am working on that.

Even more sadly geek-like, I was knackered after all that exhausting enjoyment. But I stayed up with my restored laptop on my nice new table. Fell asleep sitting up in bed until an un-Godly crash in the basement woke me up at 3 am. It sounded like someone was breaking in!

I staggered to the kitchen as fast as my spastic legs would allow and shoved a chair under the basement doorknob. Ah, the cleverness of me. Turned on ALL the lights. Shrieked and screeched up the stairs to Mary Kate. Stood there holding the walls with my heart pounding!

She stumbled down from upstairs while I pantingly told her I thought someone had tried to break into the basement. I told her there was a huge crash, as though a window had been broken and something had been knocked over. She steadied me while I backed up onto my bed.

Then she looked at me and actually said “Did you go down and check?”

There is no end to the amusement my children supply me with.

While we were sitting in my room talking, we heard another noise. That was it, we called 911.

A very kind dispatcher kept us on the line while the police were sent. This was Mary Kate and I with the phone, whispering to each other. I’m sure the dispatcher couldn’t hear us, because I believe the technology to hear callers discuss underwear in a whisper has not been developed yet. “Here hold this for a minute, I have to put a bra on.” “Ok, but hurry, I have to put one on too.” “You’ll be fine, just cross you arms over your chest!” “I can’t let a police officer in here when I am not wearing a bra!” “They’re not looking at your chest!” “Oh, not my chest, just yours?!?!” Knock, knock. In unison: “Just a minute!”

An adorable plain clothes cop comes in, asks a few questions, his partner pops through the front door too. I show them my high tech burglary prevention tool, chair-under-the-knob. They refrain from comment, but I could see they were dead impressed. I’ll probably have a job offer next week.

And then, as this young guy turned the knob on a door to the completely unknown and potentially really dangerous, the true seriousness sank in. I had such respect and gratitude for him. For both of them. Mary Kate and I backed up towards the dining room as the basement door opened.

“Plaster.”, the first cop said. “Wow.”, the second cop said. I peered over their shoulders to see that the ceiling over my basement stairs had collapsed. There was an ankle deep layer of 3 inch thick, 80 year old plaster from the back door, down the stairs, and splayed out across the basement floor.

They still checked out the whole basement. I guess in case the plaster thing had simply been a clever burglar ploy. But no one had tried to break in. The ceiling had merely checked out.

Safe from having my laundry stolen. Phew!! But a whole new thing to repair. Sigh.

My theme song:



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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RXJc199zFk



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12 comments:

The Silver Age Sara said...

Glad you were only practically robbed but how scary.

Julie said...

What a hoot, the plaster bandit. Glad it was nothing more serious.

beth5393 said...

you are so brave

I so relate to the getting the bra on before they get there. you are such a clever writer.

I bet those cops got a good belly laugh when they got out to their car.

The things that spook us out what a laugh.

my advise, for what it's worth, is to lock the cellar door and call it good. Then no money needs to be spent, no repair need to happen. Denial is a very good thing.

Margaret said...

How scary. (The thought of having to pay for those repairs, I mean!)

Marie said...

It was so scary everybody!! But those cops were great. They weren't like cowboys, they were totally professional. But it really hit me when he opened the basement door, having no idea if he was going to be dealing with a raccoon, overactive imagination or true danger. Thank heavens for them!!

My personal favorite moment was my daughter asking me if I had gone down to check on the noise.

HA HA HA HA HA HA

Does she KNOW how many grade B horror flicks I've seen?!?!

The Mother said...

That is SO scary. Happened to us once. Alarms went off in the middle of the night, the police came.

A shelf had fallen in the upstairs sewing room, hit one of the windows and set off the glass breaks.

Only funny in retrospect, I'm afraid.

Glad everyone's all right.

Webster said...

I hope you don't need your laundry any time soon.I also hope that the cost of cleanup and repair isn't too outrageous. The bra discussion: priceless.

Unknown said...

Great post, thanks for sharing! LOL!

Jane Turley said...

You put a bra on for the cops? Woman, don't you know an opportunity when you see one?!!

Very funny story Marie. I look forward to hearing about the renovations!

Tania McCartney said...

Dear Marie,

I came over from MomBlogs to check if your 'pathetic 2 followers' had expanded and it has! Well done!

Your 'desperately seeking' post made me smile. Wonderful to see people enjoying your lovely blog.

Warm wishes,

Tania
:)

Staci said...

When I was in high school, I thought someone was breaking in. It sounded like all the glass in the windows in the living room were breaking. I freaked. My mom freaked, but at least we didn't call 911. Why am I saying at least? Well, it wasn't a robber. It was a boquet of balloons caught in the ceiling fan. Could you imagine the embarrassment if we had?

Yeah, I guess you can.

Lawyer Mom said...

I was about to say, "what an adventure!" But a ceiling caving in and plaster repair is, umm, no such an adventure. Best wishes!