My brother, the hero

My brother is a hero to me. He taught me how to shoot guns, how to drive a tractor, how to drive a manual transmission, how to jitterbug, gave me my first gun, took me on my first gopher / jackrabbit / deer hunt, was with me when I got my first idiot mark (rifle scoped), has asserted his 'rating' on the various prospects over the years, has shown me never to throw in the towel and no matter how much I eat its never enough. But the truly heroic part came in last night.

I was housesitting this week. Things were going well, I was having fun playing domestic housekeeper.
Yesterday afternoon, Clayton called me. The tone in his voice scared me... "Anna, how much longer are you staying at that house?" Just tonight, why?

There have been some creepy break-ins at young girls' apartments recently. I do mean creepy. What I did NOT know was that it happened NEXT DOOR to "my" house. Apparently, they broke into one girl's place again this weekend. Yeah, next door, this weekend, while I was blissfully alone and unaware. My brother personally spoke to the girl yesterday, and naturally was concerned for my safety.

"You call me if you hear ANYTHING Anna. I'll be there." Okay, sounds like a plan. Its nice to know he cares.

I wasn't too worried. So I'm sitting there in the house last night after putting the dogs to bed, watching some TV since its available. Then the house phone rang at 10:30. Kind of a weird time. I don't answer the phone, just let the machine get it. A concerned neighbor left a message to tell me that my car brake lights had been on for about an hour. Sigh, story of my life.

So, I unlocked the front door, and peered out into the dark. Sure enough, just my parking lights. Suddenly I get this hair-raising idea that it was probably a trap to lure me out in the dark. So I RAN to my car, jumped inside and shut the door. Then I tried to turn my lights off. No luck! Now I'm really panicked.

I didn't hesitate. I picked up the phone and called Clayton, kinda sheepish. "Um, this is dumb, but I can't turn my car lights off." "Don't say any more, I'm on my way," he said. So I stood inside near the front door watching for him. It seemed like it took forever. I was listening intently for intruders, I wasn't even breathing. The dogs started freaking out and my heart was pounding so hard. Noises were everywhere and the dogs were going spastic.

About 8 minutes later, he pulled in, came to the door, got my car keys and fixed the problem. He simply opened the car door and turned my lightswitch the rest of the way. Hmm, how is it that I didn't try that? I was so terrified by this time that my blonde moment didn't even matter.

"Can you come inside with me and make sure no one is in there?" Seriously, I was way beyond the point of feeling dumb about anything, I was terrified. So we cleared the house. "I brought something for you," he said. He pulled out a hand gun. "You shoot anything with this Anna, and it will cease to exist." So there we stood, 11:00 p.m. in someone else's house learning how to shoot, unload and load this semi-auto.

He asked if I was okay, and left me with 3 pieces of advice. 1. Aim for center of mass. 2. (I will refrain from posting #2 on the internet) 3. Leave the lights on.

I could have just hugged him and never let go. He never once made light of my fear, probably because this time he was worried himself. I could have called him 4 more times and I know he would have been there.

The rest of the night was torturously spent sitting on the couch, reading Psalms aloud and listening. I had no idea how much sound a house makes in the night. The dogs got pretty bothered a few times, and my response was always to loudly declare to them "Its okay. I have a loaded gun." That was said more for the benefit of the lurkers. (If all of this was on video I'm sure I'd die laughing now... though it seemed life and death at the time) I slept only for a few minutes here and there. This was my view most of the night...

a girl's best friends (should be)

I was so glad to be alive this morning. God is good and I know my brother's got my back.

Also, guys that do things like this to those poor girls should be taken care of in a manner that is inappropriate for me to speak of.

p.s. Please conclude from this story that it would not be wise to try and scare me in the night. Let me tell you now that you will probably be shot... and that's not my problem.