Someone stole our gourd....

Now I'm pissed.

Sometime, between our last post and 10:30 p.m. last night, some stupid little punk (or maybe an even stupider BIG punk) took the butternut squash I had sitting with my pumpkins on the stoop. (You can see a brief shot of said gourd in the video from the previous post, right around the 38 sec. mark.)

This really bothers me... I've had this innate fear of having our house broken in to for a while, ever since we've been married. I don't know why (maybe it's the fact that we've never been at a place really long enough for me to feel safe?) The only thing I can think of that may have really contributed to this fear was from before my brother Stephin was born.

When I was a kid, maybe 10 or so, my bedroom window was right about the basement doors. We had those big metal hatch type doors, and they weren't easy to open, made lots of noise when they did. Well one night, my Mom and one of her brothers (I think he was staying with us at the time) were in our basement visiting, and just having a good time catching up. I was in bed trying to sleep when I heard the basement door open. Too scared to check it out myself, I just assumed (and hoped) that it was one of my parents and went to sleep.

The next morning, our neighbor called us to let us know that our car was in their yard... Well, that was a bit strange. How did it get there? Did the wind blow it? What we realized was that my Dad had left the keys in it because he'd been trying to fix it (hadn't run for a while at that point). So someone, thinking they scored a free car, turned the key, started it up, and drove it as far as they could--across the street, about 50 feet away.

Okay, that part is kinda funny. What was scary, though, is that when I told my parents I had heard the basement doors open, they said they never went over there, and so we assume Mr. Car Thief Extraordinare had been the one to open it. He probably sat on the steps, waiting for my parents/uncle(s) to go to bed, but they were up a while.... I don't know what their intentions were, and what they thought they would find, but I am thankful that my parents had decided to stay up doing who-knows-what down there (unfinished basements aren't exactly a comfortable to hang out in.)

ANYWAYS, never bothered me until living in "the big city", and then when we moved to Tyson's. Shortly after we moved in, Jeremy told me that when he was taking out the trash late one night, a bunch of teens walking by him said, "Hey, we don't live here, but we're inside the gates, do you feel safe???" I forget what Jeremy's response was, something like, "Yeah, I do, actually." Well, that's not the kind of story you should share with me!! From then on, every bump, creak, whatever I heard was associated with some stranger trying to break into the house....

And now, some idiot was ballsy enough to walk up the long driveway, in front of all our neighbors, and steal my gourd! FREAKING MORONS! Of course, they could have come in from the street, scaling our super defensive fence we've got (rolling eyes....)

I mean, come on... It was just a squash. Yeah, it was cool (one of the biggest squashes I'd ever seen, at least of the butternut variety,) but what're ya gonna do with it? It doesn't have the "smashability" factor like a pumpkin has.... I doubt they took it to eat it. Gosh darnit, I want my squash back!

Needless to say, I'm not happy. I'm hoping that it was some kid with good parents, and they'll knock on my door this afternoon to say, "Sorry, junior was an idiot and took this last night." But I'm not holding my breath. Oh well.