
This morning, I had my first terrifying "living on my own" experience. At my dollhouse apartment, I have a nice little porch to myself, that also has a gate that leads down some steps to the backyard. At the bottom of the steps, you can just walk directly onto the property behind ours and head towards the main road. I've never felt unsafe in my apartment, but not long after I moved in, I noticed the gate on my porch was being left open. I realized someone was probably using my porch as a cut through to get to that road and lazily leaving my gate open. I didn't love the idea, but I wasn't too concerned, just curious who it was.
This may be TMI, but I'm telling you anyways. When I'm getting ready for work, the apartment tends to get super hot and stuffy so at this point in my routine I'm half dressed...shirt on, but no pants.
While mid-routine, I was my kitchen making breakfast while chatting with a friend and noticed to white blurs run by my window in the crouched position onto my porch. I ran the 2 feet to the living room window and peep out and see a kid who is still crouched down and from this position it looks like he's trying to steal my chair. The next few thoughts race through my mind:
1. Someone else is with this kid, because I know I saw two blurs. Is it a kid or an adult?
2. I'm getting robbed and I really don't know what to do about it.
3.. Do I open the door now or put on pants and then attack?
I immediately decide if I take the time to find pants, this kid will be gone—and no one is stealing from me, even if I'm scared out of my mind right now.
So I fling open the door (trying my best to keep my waist hidden behind the door) and yell, "What the heck are you doing?!?!" I see the other kid is halfway down the stairs and I'm pretty sure the other saw me peep out the window and was scared to move after that.
They looked to be anywhere form 8 to 10 and in shaky voices informed me they were just cutting through and asked me if that was okay. I tried to laugh (still hiding my no-pantsed self behind the door, but I'm pretty sure he knew what was going on) and told them that was okay, but that they had just scared me.
So now the mystery of my porch runner is solved and all the neighborhood kids are telling each other about the crazy lady next door with no pants on. Only me.