Hey! Quit Disturbing My Domestic!

So I was in bed last night, reading, minding my own business of course, when my cat sort of went ballistic and ran off. She'd been mashed up against me all evening, but she got spooked and bugged out. About then I realized that the police helicopter, which circles around our neighborhood a lot because we're not far from a couple of high crime areas, was flying way lower than normal.

And then the lights came on. A high-powered light flashing through the trees and bushes in the backyard and around the side of the house, which is where my bedroom windows are. All the neighborhood dogs (and there are a lot of them) were barking, and I knew something was up. The police helicopter circled in tight on our house, flying low and shining its light in the yard (in my windows).

A couple of years ago we had a similar incident. The police chased a burglary suspect into our neighborhood, and they thought he might be hiding in our garage. There were loads of cops prowling through the backyard with their guns drawn. The main difference this time is that I didn't sleep through most of it. I was still awake when it started.

So I turned off my lamp and made myself very small on my bed. I really wanted to get away from the windows--I felt vulnerable. But I also didn't want to move. I wished I was all tough and *ahem* badass, but really I was just a Twinkie. I curled up into a ball and waited it out. Actually it wasn't so bad--I knew the cops were right there, so I didn't feel like a criminal was going to get me. Okay, I did a little bit.

What really made my heart start pounding was when one of the cops walked around the side of the house and shined his flashlight into my window wells. I saw the light and I saw his legs as he walked past, and my heart just went nuts, and not in the swooning kind of way. I felt pretty stupid. I mean, it was a cop, not a bad guy. Duh. But it was startling anyway. So was seeing the red laser guide of a cop's taser. What did I think they were going to do, tase my windows? Weenie.

From start to finish, it was probably half an hour, but it seemed like forever. The helicopter just kept circling and circling. When it finally rose higher and then took off, I knew it was over. I crawled across the bed and reached down to the floor. I grabbed my laptop and shoved it under the covers. See, the city has a police blotter on the internet. And the TV stations are pretty good about covering breaking news on their web sites. I opened my laptop, hit the on button, and then tucked the blankets around it so the light from the screen was hidden. I'd open the screen, type in an address, and put the screen back down really fast, keeping the blankets tucked around the computer.

Fat lot of good it did. Everything had happened too fast. It was too soon for anything to be on the blotter, and it apparently wasn't big enough for the TV news. About that time, Mom came downstairs and told me that basically we had just had an episode of COPS unfold in our front yard. We don't know who the guy was or why the cops were after him, but they found him hiding in the bushes next to our front door.

Mom and Dad were up and watching out the window as the cops found him and arrested him. He was taken away in an ambulance, so he probably did get tased.

So I was up for about another hour, till the adrenaline was out of my system. And the most important thing I learned last night?

Curtains! Must get curtains!