ADT...Accelerated Drama Time

Drama runs high here, you know that. Rarely does it drop, but every so often, it'll suddenly spike with no warning.

It might be over a 2nd grade class party goodie bag, as documented in Be My Valen-Crime, or maybe we accidentally brought the church mouse home with us in a duffle bag, that escalated to a battle of wits documented in Mouse Trap.

That incident led to my relationship with my good friend, Mark from Orkin. He visits me every 3 months, unless I see a mouse. A centipede. A flea. A spider. You know, any emergency that needs an extra visit. Mark from Orkin is soooo familiar with us, that on his most recent visit last month, he found me in my office to discuss our home improvements he noticed.
"Um, Mark from Orkin? Remember that time 10 minutes ago when I told you I saw a mouse in my closet? Where we at with that?"

He left with mouse in hand 30 minutes later.
Yeah, Mark from Orkin is my super good friend.

I have another new super good friend now. His name is Scott from ADT.

You see, a few weeks ago, in the short span of time between me leaving for Zumba, and Kearstin arriving home from school with Caymen, an unmarked white van backed into our driveway and a man with a clipboard was roaming around our barn. Kearstin proceeded to break every family safety rule in the book by having a conversation with the man, believing his story of surveying our yard for a landscaping company that doesn't exist, and trusting him when he said, "I'm supposed to be here."

Why was he believable? Cuz he had a clipboard, yo.
A few minutes later, our daughter-in-law happened to arrive and the guy panicked and left.

/\/\/\/\DRAMA/\SPIKE/\HERE/\/\/\/\

Last weekend, as I followed Scott from ADT around our house while he installed door and window sensors, motion detectors, spotlights, and cameras, I made some friendly small-talk...asked him how long he's been with the company, innocently wondered if ADT installation would maybe be a primo job for a criminal to apply for...you know, keepin' it casual. He finally stopped and said, "So, I'm just curious. Did something bad happen here recently?"

"Well, now that you mention it, yes. A mouse was in my closet and a van was in our driveway...guy had a clipboard...it was pretty bad."

Scott from ADT and Mark from Orkin make a lot of the same facial expressions at me. Weird.

I'm happy to report that the spike is behind us and we've returned to our normal high levels of drama.

Turns out, a lot of responsibility comes with having an automated connection to law enforcement.
Yeah, I was surprised by that, too.

Like, say for instance, Ron's playing Call Of Duty and our grandson pushes the power button and shuts the game down. If Ron were to take off running outside to the garage to get black electrical tape to cover the button, forget to deactivate the system before he opens the door, and then misses the 30 second window to push the code because doesn't hear the alarms because he's still got his Call Of Duty headphones on...see, that would be bad.

So let's all just make sure that never happens. Again.