Let me begin by saying that on Thursday night evening, Joey’s laptop and iPad were stolen out of his office.  He came downstairs after youth group and discovered they were missing, which got the ball rolling on a series of events which included calling the polices.  It was the first (legitimate) time that Joey has called the cops, which could potentially have been exciting were it not for the fact that his laptop and iPad were the heisted iTems.

On Friday morning, there was a general feeling of BOO and LAME and RAWR hovering around the ceiling in our house, especially when we realized there were some sensitive docs on that computer that could compromise our identities.  Analie seemed to pick up on the fact that there were Things To Be Grumpy About, because yesterday was her crankiest day so far.  Admittedly she’s only had about 134 days in her life so far.  But she was doing her best to make sure yesterday was her worst.

By 2:00 I still hadn’t had a chance for a shower, and Analie wasn’t happy unless she was in her sling and we were moving around.  There was a lull in the misty rain coming down outside, so we went to the curb to pick up the mail and bring the trash can back up to the house.  We keep our trash can around back, so after we put it where it belonged we checked out all of our plants; I pulled a baby carrot plant and showed it to Analie, we examined the parsley, and decided that the area set aside for strawberries was not going to be adequate.

I heard something weird out front but figured it was our neighbor across the street working on the ornamental gate he’s installing on their driveway.  As Analie and I walked around the corner and opened our gate, I noticed a big, navy late model bad-guy style car sitting in our driveway with the windows rolled down.

My first thought was DUUUUUUDE!  THE COMPUTER ROBBERS ARE HERE TO STEAL MY ENTIRE HOUSE!!!  WHY DID I LEAVE THE FRONT DOOR OPEN??!

I stood there at the gate, with what I am sure was this very line of thinking plastered on my face.  It crossed my mind that if the person in the car tried to approach me, I could just yell for our neighbor who was working on his driveway.  He’d come over and save me because he’s a super nice guy.  (We’re finally starting to get to know our neighbors!)

With the reassurance of rescue by my neighbor, I felt braver and decided to just walk across the driveway and go inside.  I could probably get there before the criminal in the car started shooting at me, right?  I strutted across my driveway, Analie in her sling, walked up my front walk and stood inside the door.  Once inside my house, I felt much safer.  The “criminal” remained in the car, it was parked awkwardly on the side of my driveway, just sitting there.  Awkwardly.

It was then that greater reason began to sink in.  More than likely, the “criminal” thought they’d turn around in our driveway because we have a little parking area that is ideal for that sort of thing.  And now I was standing there in the doorway, staring at them and freaking them out.  After what seemed like minutes, the “criminal” started to back up.  Not just finish the turnaround job they’d started, but actually backing up.

And because they’d been in the middle of turning around when I came around the corner and scared them, they started backing up right into our lawn.  Admittedly our lawn is in bad shape because we have moles and I won’t let Joey kill them.  BUT THEY WERE DRIVING ON OUR LAWN.  So, from the safety of behind my screen door, I threw up my hands and yelled “What the heck?!”

This scared the person in the car, so they straightened their car out, but not quite enough.  Once they backed up again, they drove right over our patch of ornamental grasses that haven’t really come back very well this year.  The “criminal” was on its way to driving down into our very steep ditch when I threw my hands back up again and yelled “HEY!”

Suddenly I hoped that whoever was in that car was not a member of our church who had decided to drop in for a visit.  Because I had assurely scared them off with my certifiable insanity brought on by the heist in Joey’s office the night before.  At this very moment, I was getting the Worst Pastor’s Wife Ever award.  So I shut the front door and locked it.  Twice.

Then I moved to the window to keep watching the drama that was unfolding in my driveway.

Finally, and without too much further damage to our yard or grasses, the “criminal” made it out of our driveway.  I think the whole thing would have been over much faster if I hadn’t stood out front freaking them out.