When Tess and I bought a house near downtown Columbus, I can’t say we weren’t warned.
It’s been two years since we moved into the house that Ike Savelle’s dad built a couple of blocks east of Military Hardware in 1930. Oh, there was the foot traffic you expect when you live close to downtown. We’ve had a few items taken from our cars, which is a peril of parking on the street, I suppose.
But by and large, we love our home and the sweat equity we have invested in our efforts to return the old house to its original charm.
We enjoy sitting outside when the evenings are pleasant, watching neighbors come and go and checking our watches by the church bells, which serenade us at 6 p.m. sharp each day.
But, alas, Sunday afternoon, on the same day we got an email from an ever-vigilant neighborhood watch member alerting us to the presence of a person whose walking pace was judged to be suspiciously slow (whatever that means), we were victims of a home invasion.
I don’t suppose anyone is ever prepared for this sort of thing, of course. Our gun, which happens to be a Daisy BB Rifle, was stashed away in a closet somewhere and our Security Staff — which consists of an odd assortment of five mutts of various ages, shapes and sizes — were gnawing on the rib bones that were the residue of our Sunday afternoon feast.
Tess’ mom had driven down for the day from Tupelo and we were all sitting out back on the patio — dogs and all — enjoying the beautiful weather, when the incident occurred.
Four people — two tall people and two short people (three males and a female) — entered our home through the unlocked front door, moved through the den, the living room and the kitchen, then opened the door to the laundry room and stepped through.
The laundry room has a large window that looks out to our back patio and we saw them seconds before the female member of the group opened the door to the back yard.
She was armed with wine coolers as she opened the door, peaked out and shouted merrily, “Hello!”
I didn’t recognize her, and turned to Tess, assuming it was a friend of hers who I had not yet met. Tess looked at her, then looked at me. It was clear she didn’t know this young woman, either.
In a second, the woman’s cheery smile was swept away from her face, replaced with the cherry-red glow of embarrassment.
“I’m so sorry!” she cried, stammering out an explanation interspersed with apologies.
The four people backed into the laundry room, apologizing. They apologized back into the kitchen, apologized through the living room and apologized into the den, retreating apologetically toward the front door.
There in the den, a little game Tess had put together for Relay for Life, caught the attention of one of the smaller invaders, a boy I judged to be about 6 years old. He stopped to play with the game, but only for a second.
“Stop that! Come here!” the woman pleaded desperately, still trying to back her way to the front door.
In the minute or so it took for them to retrace their steps, we got a somewhat convoluted explanation about what had happened.
It turns out they were supposed to be attending a birthday party about a block away at a home they had never visited. Their hosts had told them to just come on through the house and into the back yard where the party was being held. That explained why there was no knock on the door and why they were emboldened to wander through our house.
Among all the apologizing, we all managed to introduce ourselves, by first names only. The woman was Ginny. Her accomplices were her two boys, Mark and David, and her brother-in-law, Will. Her husband wasn’t able to attend, which probably would have greatly diminished the awkward scene, since I know Wade Leonard, who teaches at Mississippi School for Mathematics & Science.
Later, when my name finally clicked with her, Ginny sent me an email to — you guessed it — apologize and thank me for not shooting her. As if.
It was probably the most pleasant home invasion ever, I am thinking. Tess and I love company and don’t mind unexpected guests on the theory, “mi chaos es su chaos.”
We met Ginny only briefly, but Tess and I and won’t likely forget how we met.
Of course, I realize not everyone is as open to spontaneous visitors as Tess and I.
So be forewarned: You never know when Ginny will be sitting around the house one day and suggest, “Hey, let’s go visit somebody!” and mean it in a random sort of way.
That’s fine with us, though.
Just come on in.
We’ll be out back.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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