11:40 - I hear a loud rumbling outside. My half-asleep brain assumes it's my daughter's friends family truck. A giant red Dodge minus a muffler. I kinda wonder why they are here when their kid isn't.
11:41 - I get up and peek around the blackout curtains. See a large white SUV with their interior light on sitting at the end of my driveway, lights pointed toward my truck and wife's van. (I'm on the second floor.)
11:42 - Wife comes up behind me asks who it is. I throw open the curtain, staring down in my driveway and yard silhouetted in my masculinity and realize there's a motorcycle with the SUV, previously obscured by a tree and it's turning around. (I live at the end of a cul-de-sac of a pretty night neighborhood. Folks don't come up here to turn around. Ever.)
11:43 - Wife asks if I 'have anything up here'. Hell yeah girl. I was a Boy Scout, a Marine, and an American.
11:43 - Fumble with the stupid key to the gun safe I keep upstairs. Can't find the key hole in the dark. Finally end up rubbing my fingers across the smooth finish until I find it.
11:44 - Open and grab the holstered, round in chamber, Glock 19 that I conceal carry on the daily.
11:45 - Realize I can't see shit because I'm lazy and sleep with my contacts in and now they are getting blurry because they are dried out. Race across the bedroom to the bathroom and splash my eyes with some Soft Contact Lense solution. I can see!
11:46 - Strut down the stairs, flip on the porch light, take the holster off the Glock, and boldly open the door to see WTF is going on.
11:47 - Everyone had left.
So I walk around the front yard, looked into the unlocked truck where I keep a Keltec Sub2000 folded in half in a duffel bag in the back seat. Still there. Good. That woulda been an easy theft. Check the wife's van. Check the cul-de-sac and the neighbors house the best I can from the road. Everything seems fine.
11:55 - Go back inside. Tell wife I'll stay up for a while cause she's feeling uneasy.
11:56 - Grab a Cherry Pepsi Zero and realize all the mistakes I made at once.
12:00ish - Log onto the forum to talk about it.
It seems like I did a bunch of stupid stuff. Which could have gone badly had this been anything evil depending on just how evil things went. Breaking and entering into vehicles. Breaking and entering into the house. Home invasion. To the Russkies finally invading a la Red Dawn.
My wife and daughter were both sleeping in the living room on the couches. For some childlike reason that my daughter had instead of sleeping in her room. If anyone had come in the front, or even knocked on the door, they'd have been the 'first in the way'.
-At no point was I concerned about myself or my family's safety. Or even think about arming myself. Not until my wife came upstairs and mentioned it, after I was standing silhouetted in the window.
Which I think shows how sleep foggy I was. Because I've been waiting for this kind of moment my entire life.
-I ignored the .308 FAL rifle under my side of the bed. That required only to pull the case out, shove a mag in and rack the bolt to be ready. Which is the entire purpose of being there and always being planned as my 'something went bump in the night' gun.
-I opened the TOP compartment to the gun safe in my bedroom. Where I keep pistols. Ignoring all the rifle goodies in the bottom portion that would have been much quicker to have gotten(because the key lock doesn't suck) and had a flashlight on them.
-I grabbed a Glock 19 with factory sights (not night sights) and no light.
-For that matter, the only flashlight location I know of was the one in my truck.
-I needed contact solution to be able to see anything.
-I threw open the front door and just stepped out into the lights. Had the car still been there, I'd have been standing directly in front of it's headlights and unable to see squat. (Meanwhile there's a nice side door in the garage that woulda worked much better.)
-I didn't even think to arm my wife... until just now. (30 minutes later) She has her own pistol in the safe right beside mine.
I reckon hindsight is 20/20. And it was a nice 'trial run' of how complacent I've become in a nice small neighborhood out in the woods far away from town.
Things to do in the morning? Kick myself and order a set of night sights for my carry gun. (I've been meaning to do that for... oh 15 years now). Get a flashlight to go on top of the safe. Get some contact solution to go beside it.
Bleh.
Time for bed.
11:41 - I get up and peek around the blackout curtains. See a large white SUV with their interior light on sitting at the end of my driveway, lights pointed toward my truck and wife's van. (I'm on the second floor.)
11:42 - Wife comes up behind me asks who it is. I throw open the curtain, staring down in my driveway and yard silhouetted in my masculinity and realize there's a motorcycle with the SUV, previously obscured by a tree and it's turning around. (I live at the end of a cul-de-sac of a pretty night neighborhood. Folks don't come up here to turn around. Ever.)
11:43 - Wife asks if I 'have anything up here'. Hell yeah girl. I was a Boy Scout, a Marine, and an American.
11:43 - Fumble with the stupid key to the gun safe I keep upstairs. Can't find the key hole in the dark. Finally end up rubbing my fingers across the smooth finish until I find it.
11:44 - Open and grab the holstered, round in chamber, Glock 19 that I conceal carry on the daily.
11:45 - Realize I can't see shit because I'm lazy and sleep with my contacts in and now they are getting blurry because they are dried out. Race across the bedroom to the bathroom and splash my eyes with some Soft Contact Lense solution. I can see!
11:46 - Strut down the stairs, flip on the porch light, take the holster off the Glock, and boldly open the door to see WTF is going on.
11:47 - Everyone had left.
So I walk around the front yard, looked into the unlocked truck where I keep a Keltec Sub2000 folded in half in a duffel bag in the back seat. Still there. Good. That woulda been an easy theft. Check the wife's van. Check the cul-de-sac and the neighbors house the best I can from the road. Everything seems fine.
11:55 - Go back inside. Tell wife I'll stay up for a while cause she's feeling uneasy.
11:56 - Grab a Cherry Pepsi Zero and realize all the mistakes I made at once.
12:00ish - Log onto the forum to talk about it.
It seems like I did a bunch of stupid stuff. Which could have gone badly had this been anything evil depending on just how evil things went. Breaking and entering into vehicles. Breaking and entering into the house. Home invasion. To the Russkies finally invading a la Red Dawn.
My wife and daughter were both sleeping in the living room on the couches. For some childlike reason that my daughter had instead of sleeping in her room. If anyone had come in the front, or even knocked on the door, they'd have been the 'first in the way'.
-At no point was I concerned about myself or my family's safety. Or even think about arming myself. Not until my wife came upstairs and mentioned it, after I was standing silhouetted in the window.
Which I think shows how sleep foggy I was. Because I've been waiting for this kind of moment my entire life.
-I ignored the .308 FAL rifle under my side of the bed. That required only to pull the case out, shove a mag in and rack the bolt to be ready. Which is the entire purpose of being there and always being planned as my 'something went bump in the night' gun.
-I opened the TOP compartment to the gun safe in my bedroom. Where I keep pistols. Ignoring all the rifle goodies in the bottom portion that would have been much quicker to have gotten(because the key lock doesn't suck) and had a flashlight on them.
-I grabbed a Glock 19 with factory sights (not night sights) and no light.
-For that matter, the only flashlight location I know of was the one in my truck.
-I needed contact solution to be able to see anything.
-I threw open the front door and just stepped out into the lights. Had the car still been there, I'd have been standing directly in front of it's headlights and unable to see squat. (Meanwhile there's a nice side door in the garage that woulda worked much better.)
-I didn't even think to arm my wife... until just now. (30 minutes later) She has her own pistol in the safe right beside mine.
I reckon hindsight is 20/20. And it was a nice 'trial run' of how complacent I've become in a nice small neighborhood out in the woods far away from town.
Things to do in the morning? Kick myself and order a set of night sights for my carry gun. (I've been meaning to do that for... oh 15 years now). Get a flashlight to go on top of the safe. Get some contact solution to go beside it.
Bleh.
Time for bed.
