Crime Does Not Pay In Charm City

Have you all seen the story about the Johns Hopkins student who killed an intruder with a samurai sword this past week?  Shocking, huh?  While I in no way endorse the taking of a life, I can certainly understand the desire to protect his property.  Especially since just hours earlier someone had broken in and stolen two laptops and a video game console!  I mean can you imagine?  It’s like the guy’s house had a big BREAK IN HERE! message on it or something. 

It wouldn’t be the first house to have a message written on it.  About a year ago a house up the street had EARLS CRACKHOUSE (sic) spraypainted on the side.  I’m not sure if that was from a disgruntled customer or a brilliant stroke of marketing on Earl’s part.  Either way, it appeared that Earl was about to hit a string of bad luck.  The next sign we saw at Earl’s was a smaller note taped to the front door:

Earls in jail.  Knock and you will be to.

I promise I am not making that up. 

Earl’s place has since been rehabbed and flipped.  Let’s hope he wasn’t cooking meth, otherwise those new owners will be in for a time of it.

So last night I took Cecilia out for her evening pee around 10pm.  Last night she’s about to pop a squat and a young man comes out of a neighbor’s back yard.  A young man who does not live in my neighborhood. 

So I say “Can I help you?”  He looks a little startled.  I continue “I always walk my dog out here and I’ve never seen you before.  What are you doing?”

One of the nice things about getting older is that I can ask moderately rude questions of younger people and they don’t yet know to be offended. 

Before Guy 1 has a chance to answer, out comes another young man who curiously has his shirt off.  Guy 2 spies Cecilia and shies away a little before asking “Does she bite?”

My reply?  “She might.”

Note: To my knowledge, Cecilia has only bitten someone twice in her life.  Both times that person was me.  Both times she was defending a found chicken bone.  Moral of the story?  DO NOT get between girlfriend and her chicken bone.

I repeat my question: “What are you guys doing?”

Guy 1 mumbles something about trying to find out the house number to see if his friend lives there.  I then point out that most houses have numbers on the front, not the back and suggest that they move along. 

I’m not sure if they were scoping out a target, doing drugs or having sex, but I know those men were not on the up and up.  And Cecilia unknowingly became my guard dog.  Which is a very good thing, because I did not have my samurai sword with me.