We have a new nickname for me – and by “we” I mean my wife, Laura. She is calling me Captain Underpants.
Here’s the story:
The other night Laura woke me up to tell me someone was at our back door trying to break in – generally not the way one wants to be awakened. Given that it was summer, we could hear the gentleman cursing, apparently talking to someone (turned out to be himself or an imaginary friend), and pounding at our porch door. I sprang to immediate action – wearing what I normally wear to bed.
While Laura called 911 I went downstairs to see if I could deter him somehow. I first turned on a flood light we have in our back yard – I’m not sure he noticed. He certainly was not deterred. I then observed him for a bit.
At this point, it may be helpful to understand the physical layout of our back entry. We have a screened porch with a locked screen door. Opposite that, there is a door from the porch into the house, also locked. We have two windows over our kitchen sink that open onto the porch. Our porch door is a screen door with four clear panels that can be slid open or closed.
As I continued to assess the situation (and after having turned on the lights to no helpful effect), I observed the gentleman with his hand protruding through the bottom of the screen door. He had cut through the screen and had pounded in the lowest of the four panels. He was reaching through and trying to unlock and open the door from the inside. If he had not been so inebriated or otherwise impaired, I think he would have succeeded. Nevertheless, I wanted to stop him from making further progress.
At this point in Laura’s telling of the story (as related based on my telling because she was still upstairs) I “confronted” the potential intruder. In my telling of the story, I cowered behind a barely open kitchen window and tried to engage the gentleman in conversation.
Basically, I said, “You need to stop that.” He did. Here was the rest of our conversation:
Him: “I just need to poop.”
Me: “You can’t do that here.”
Him: “Why not.”
Me: “You wrecked our screen door.”
Him: “I’ll pay you for that – I’m an honorable man.”
Me: “Just don’t try again.”
Him: “I just need to poop.”
Repeat until the police arrive – which, by the way, was remarkably fast – perhaps 3 minutes.
In Laura’s book, this constitutes me taking a substantial risk. I my book, not only did I have this discussion from a generally cowering position, but, more importantly, it worked. He stopped trying to get into our house.
The irony is that while Laura purports to consider this a serious situation where I put myself directly in harm’s way, it has not stopped her from making fun of me and my attire at the time. The main reason I would not have gotten into a direct confrontation is that I had no intention of making my last night on the planet one in which I did something truly stupid in my underpants.