Dumbass Burglar

Last week, after a couple of hours with Raghav and a few drinks, I come back home and drunkenly queue a few episodes of Scrubs in Winamp, hoping to get a few chuckles out of it before I pass out.

Around 2:30 AM, I hear a faint scratching noise coming from the direction of the window I left ajar, right in front of me. Earlier that evening, I saw a praying mantis perched on that window, so I assumed it was just that. Then, it was as if something was scratching the curtain there, but all I did was think ‘the mantis is getting frisky’ and went back to Scrubs. Then, out of the blue (or the black, since it was 2:30 AM), I see a hand reach in, trying to reach in and unlatch the window right next to that one.

Once the initial “WTF?!?” shock subsided, I yanked the curtains apart, and the guy bolted. I went out into the portico(?) and peered through the darkened glass door. I saw the guy’s silhouette on the roof of the house behind mine, craning his neck to see if the coast was clear. At that point, all that was going through my crazed, drunk mind was, “is this bastard working alone or does he have his friends with him?”

At that point, I went in and looked for something heavy that I could swing at the guy, and all I could find was my extendable terrestrial telescope. I figured that would work, so I tiptoed over to the back door, unlatched it silently, then swung the door open and rushed out. I must’ve looked braver than I felt, because the guy, who couldn’t have been older than 16 or 17, sprinted like a startled gazelle over the neighbor’s roof, then thundered down the stairs leading from the neighbor’s neighbor’s roof to the ground floor and vanished into the bushes.

I could feel my heart pounding in my teeth and all I could do was light a cigarette, lean against the frame of the back door, keep my eyes peeled, and appear as menacing as possible. Once I’d calmed down sufficiently, I went upstairs to check on my room (I usually just latch it from the outside and wander away). Everything seemed in order there, so I padlocked it, lit another cigarette, scanned the dark horizon for any sign of the bastard, and went downstairs. After securing all windows and doors, I figured a kid dumb enough to stick his hand into a window of a room that was fully lit AND showed very obvious signs of being occupied posed little to no threat, so I did what any drunk 20-something guy would do: I went to bed and passed out.

I need more such morons for batting practice. Know any? Drop me a line.