Thursday, January 04, 2007

Why lock doors?

Since we’ve moved to Stirling Tim has decided that we have no need to lock the doors to our home. He says absolutely no one will bother to rob a house in Stirling (in the middle of no where). I however, am the complete opposite....to the extreme. I always have these weird fears of strange things. They’re not new. I had them when I was much younger and living at home (I don’t think I’ve ever shared this with anyone.). It’s not just about locking doors. I’m always thinking there’s something out there in the dark (yes, it’s only when it’s dark). When I was much younger it started with when my mom asked me to go to the basement to get something from the food storage or deep freeze. Now our basement wasn’t scarey in the light, but if it was dark I would go to the basement as asked but the entire time I’d sing or whistle as loud as I could with my thoughts being, if someone were to jump out of a closet or around the corner to grab me the sudden stop of my song or whistles would alert my family. Fifteen years later I realize that I never told my family why I was singing in the basement so they probably just thought I was a weirdo that liked to sing in the basement or they didn’t notice at all (the latter is probably the truth). And then when I started driving, when I got home at night I’d race from my car to the house because I was sure a cougar or some dude was out in the trees waiting for me. Then I moved to Lethbridge and I lived in a duplex with a bunch of girls who all came home at different hours and therefore the door was never locked. This duplex was on the outskirts of Lethbridge, very near the jail. Once again I was sure that some escaped convict was laying under my car waiting to grab my ankles or would come into the house in the middle of the night (I ended up buying a lock for my bedroom door). We’ve locked the keys in our vehicles a few times because I thought they should be locked and Tim thought he’d leave the keys in and unlocked. But only twice (in our house in Lethbridge) did I make Tim get out of bed in the middle of the night and walk around the house looking for someone. I don’t think my "fears" are completely uncalled for though. Apparently when I was working at Streatside Eatery in Lethbridge I had a stalker. I don’t remember this at all, but all of my family does. Maybe I suppressed a bad memory? But I do remember receiving two creepy phone calls when I was living alone after my roommate got married and moved out. They were scarey and I had to file a police report and everything. Sheesh! And now I’m in Stirling...
Back to the original reason for this post, I’m a fanatic about locking our house and vehicles which is pretty inconvenient when we have company that don’t have keys to my house. Like last weekend when my sister and her family were visiting. Both Jenn and Tim were teasing me cuz every time we left the house I’d lock the doors. The teasing (which I do realize I’m obsessive about locking doors) went on all weekend....until yesterday. Tim woke up yesterday morning and said he had the worst dream ever. I guess someone broke into our house and we were in our bedroom on the second floor and Tim was trying to get to the basement where his gun safe is. Apparently in his dream all he could think was that he couldn’t protect his family. All he needed to do was lock the doors when we went to bed.
So, yesterday after Tim finished school he went over to Home Depot and bought deadbolts for all of our doors (in Stirling we don’t have deadbolts on our doors) to the sound of about $170 and he picked up some pellets for his pellet gun (to put in our bedroom I guess). Oh ya, he’s going all out. I’ll probably arrive home today to find an alarm system and bars on our windows. Last night, for the first time in the 6 months that we’ve lived in Stirling, Tim didn’t complain when I asked him to go out into the garage before bed and lock the side door. Do you think me obsessing over locking doors has finally got to Tim?

5 comments:

moosh in indy. said...

One dream will do a boy in. Or movie. Cody can't handle moths, Mothman Prophecies did him in.
Better safe than sorry I say, but we're totally putting bets on how soon you lock yourselves out.

Anonymous said...

okay just for the record the pellets were not part of the home protection plan, i have no delusions of protecting my family using a pellet gun. however the pump action 12 gauge and the lever action 30-30 will do fine.
Tim

moosh in indy. said...

now there's a real man.

Anonymous said...

Oh i totally agree with locking the doors all the time! i always hear noises -so when Trent's gone the dogs are in the house (no matter how stinky they are!) the doors are locked and lights are turned on in the house! TOTALLY AGREE!
Tara

Anonymous said...

Well, I guess I better jump on this "band wagon" and start locking my doors. I rarely lock them unless we're leaving home. However, you guys have all freaked me out well enough that I will look them every chance I get. THANKS A LOT!