I didn't see him!

So yesterday my older brother, Wil, came by my house to pick up some stuff he has stored in my shed. This was going to be in the morning while I was at work. Jeremy, one of my roommates, was going to be home to let my brother in. In a normal situation, this shouldn't be that big of a deal... if everyone communicates to each other in a clear manner.

This was not a normal situation. Remember children; Assumptions suck.

The following takes place between 8:45 and 10:30 am in Glendale on Dec 16th...

Play for full effect

 

 



At about 8:45, Wil texted me asking if the gate was open. What he meant was, "I hath arrived, please allow me entrance to your domicile." I didn't know I had to read between the lines. So I text Jeremy to keep his eyes open while my brother gets there.

 

Unfortunately, at around 9:30, Jeremy has a doctor's appointment. And he texts me saying, and I quote: "Can you have your bro lock the door when he leaves I didn't see him and I'm late" What he meant was, "I saw your brother earlier this morning and at this particular moment in time, he is not in my field of vision. Please have him secure our habitation when he departs. It behooves me to make haste to the healer's as I am tardy." Again, I had no idea I had to read between the lines.

 

So right now, in my mind, from what I've been told, is that Wil hasn't gotten to my house yet and Jeremy has just taken off. What they assumed is that I know my brother is there and enjoying some pop-tarts.

 

So to me, the house is unlocked, the alarm is turned off and the memory of the break-in a couple months back is still fresh in my mind. So I set the alarm remotely from my phone.

 

 

Not his time, bucko! 

 

 

At around 9:55, I get a text from my security company that the alarm has been tripped! So I called my brother immediately, from work, to ask if he was at the house. While I'm calling him, I get a call from the security company. I don't know what to tell them, I'm on the phone with my brother and I don't want to give them guesses so I ignore their call.

 

They, therefore, call Jeremy because he's the backup contact but he's ADD'ing at the doctor's office... he doesn't recognize the number and he ignores them too.

 

Bad move

 

You see, my security company takes non-answers very seriously. If you don't pick up, they assume you're under duress or a hostage. So... they call the cops.

 

Picture this: My brother is at my house with a dolly and a bunch of boxes when the cop pulls up with a report of a robbery. Oh, he's suspect number #1. Fortunately, the guy is pretty chill and doesn't shoot my brother. The cop winds up calling me asking me if Wil is supposed to be there and whatnot. I say yes and everything so the cop says he has to confirm that the house is mine by asking me to describe some of my decorations that he chooses.

 

I got nervous.

 

You see... a while back Jeremy decided to put up a poster of "thou shalt not commit logical fallacies" in the living room. My other roommate, James, in order to keep balance in the force and as a joke, put up a "Don't tread on me" flag on the opposite wall.

 

 

Hilarious

 

 

So the cop asks me, "What flag is hanging on your wall and what does it say?" And I'm thinking, "holy crap, this guys thinks I'm a tea party nut."

 

I tell him and he goes, "One final question: on your corner table in the bottom, what do you have there?" And it dawns on me, "oh no, my stormtrooper helmet. He thinks I'm a racist dork! I'm on a list!"

 

And that's how I accidently wound up calling the cops on my brother

 

...And that's how the cops have shown up to my house twice in 4 months.

Paranoia, or; how I learned to pay attention to water leaks.

So I've had my house since April and let me tell you, it's been a blast. I feel like I've learned a lot this past 1/2 year, so I figured I'd share some with you.

First, let's get the obvious out of the way. Pick your roommates wisely...




... moving on.



Second, any delusions of manliness go out the window when shopping for curtains. Seriously, I have never felt so out of place buying curtains. Because, I mean, at some point I'm going to have to impress a lady and I don't want her to freak out because the living room curtains don't match my green love seat and purple couch.

The rug really ties the room together.

 

 

Rule number three! The last possible thing you expect to break, will.

 

So last Friday as I was getting ready for work, I noticed that the carpet right outside my bathroom was really wet. I paid no mind to it because it was 5:15 in the morning and I had just gotten out of the shower. The next morning as I got ready yet again, I noticed that the really wet carpet was even wetter. When I took a quick look in my bathroom, I thought that the supply line to my toilet broke behind the wall as it looked kinda wet. So I called my insurance and 60 bucks later, boom, leak fixed... it was underneath the sink in the guest bathroom. Turns out all the water went underneath the tile and travelled a good 6 feet to where my feet noticed.



 

 

Hooray?

 

 

After a good scare about mold from a shady company that wouldn't give me an estimate and that it would, 'work with my insurance'; I realized that dang it! "Me have tools, me fix". So, 3 days later, everything is drying up and the mold still hasn't turned up.

 

Is it all your fault? Definitely.

 

Is the hassle worth it? MOST definitely. There's something about entering the doors to your own home. That no matter how bad the world outside (or inside) is, you feel a little bit of joy because, in thirty years*, the whole thing will be yours.

 

 

 

 

*Thirty years typical amount of time to pay off the leach that you call a mortgage. If moving, please consult a realtor as it will change the amount to pay, where to pay, and even change leaches. Side effects may include, but not limited to; stress, confusion, stupor, helplessness, blind rage and death. Results may vary.







Did you guys take my Xbox?

On Tuesday, August 6th 2013, between 10:00am and 2:45pm, a most curious thing happened. An individual, or individuals, decided to invite themselves into my house and peruse the vast catalogue of material goods that three middle-class bachelors could offer. The individual(s) ultimately decided that we were overstocked and decided to help us out by taking some of our inventory...

Long and short of it, some punk broke into my house in the middle of the day while we were at work and stole about twelve hundred dollars worth of our stuff.

There's something unique about being robbed; any feeling of normalcy you had up until that point utterly disappears, takes the first flight out of town and leaves you with raw emotions and a brain that's only working part-time.

These are my thoughts so results may vary. And if you've gone through any of this, this sucks.


So for me, Tuesday already started off pretty sucky. A two man job was dropped down to one, and I basically had to drop whatever I was doing to become the one guy doing it. So once quitting time came around, I was more than happy to go home.

Here's the funny part of coming home to a robbery, you don't expect it. I came home, went to the kitchen to throw away the junk mail and went to my room. From my point of view, the entire house looked like normal. I thought everything was normal for about an hour. It wasn't until I wanted to play some Call of Duty on my Xbox in the living room that I even noticed anything; and that was mostly because the Xbox wasn't there. And that's where my mind skipped a gear and stalled. And work became a distant, pleasant memory.

The denial.

I went back to my room and walked back into the living room. Nope. Xbox still missing. I went to my room and back. Still missing. "Huh, weird. Better check the sofa." - said my mind. Not there either. "Maybe one of my roommates has it... even though none of them have a TV." "Better check", I thought, so I sent them a text. Before any of them answered me I noticed the glass next to the kitchen. "It could've been a bird". I knew at this point that someone had broken in, but I just didn't want to admit it. There's just no way this could happen to me. And then I noticed the unlocked kitchen door that no one uses. And that's when the sinking feeling struck. A coldness washed over me and I knew I couldn't deny it anymore. I had been robbed.

The haze.

The next 6 hours became a blur. I called the cops and called my roommates to let them know what happened. But then what? I had to wait. So I called my parents. And at this point, I'm numb. My emotions have collapsed in on themselves, leaving only anger, and my brain is repeating over and over "THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. Who would come into my house and take my stuff?" My parents are talking to me, but I can't process their calming words to me. I call my brothers and sisters(most of them, I forgot one), and their words also echoed to me. And at some point during this, the cop shows up and takes a report of what's missing;

• The Xbox
• Two of the four controllers
• One game (It later increased to three)
• One laptop
• Two handguns

And he dusted for prints, which came up empty. And during this, it dawns on me, whoever broke into the house did not move a single thing he didn't need to. And what he did move, he put back in it's place. I feel sick and confused. Why did he put everything back? Why only this stuff? Why not some of the other stuff? Why this house? Why today? Why? Why? WHY?! WHY!!

The only other things I remember is that a friend's battery died on her and she called me for help, one of my roommate's dad bought us dinner, and that I went to sleep at around 11pm.

The day after.

I woke up at 4:30 in the morning feeling powerless. This was no longer my house, my stuff wasn't really mine. If anyone wanted any of it, what's to stop them? How are my roommates taking all of this? How should I be feeling? Who steals an Xbox and leaves two of the four controllers? What am I going to do with two controllers and no Xbox? Is anyone else I know in danger of being robbed from what they could've found here? Should I still go to work? But there was one question always behind the others... simmering..

How come I wasn't able to stop any of this?

All of my plans, strengths and talents had been overcome by some random kid with a rock he grabbed from my front yard. I thought, "If he had been here while I was here, I could've done something." "I would've been able to protect MY domain" "If there was more than one and I got beaten, I wouldn't have gone down without a fight."

But one thought kept coming back: "I... wasn't there for when I was most needed..."

I was able to get off of work early so I could fix the window, get quotes on home security, take full stock on what was missing, buy some stopgap home security measures, think about getting a dog and miscellaneous chores that kept me busy until around 10:00pm.

Every time I left the house, I kept thinking, "The kid could've come back. I'm not there. I should get back now." And only had one feeling that could only be best described as a murderous rage that can only be satisfied until the blood of the guilty paints my walls, their entrails are used as rope and their head is on a pike in my front yard. (It's a strong feeling)



It's been two days and some feelings have tempered, but now I get paranoia whenever I'm gone from the house. As I get closer to home, I get a panic attack as my thoughts go wild on what could be missing when I pull up. I know that sooner or later, normalcy will return and this will become another experience of the which I will be able to learn from. And maybe even laugh about. But until then...

...this sucks!

 

 





 

 

 

 

At what was probably the funniest/ironic thing about the whole day. This is what I had on that day...



So you decided to buy a house.

First off... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Congratulations... are in order, I guess.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously though, how well have you thought this through?

HAHAHAHaaa ooohh..  HAHA... HA..

You're funny...

What did you learn?

Taken

For almost my entire life, I've heard the same joke of, "Where's Waldo?" This quote/unquote "joke", got old about the fifth time someone said it.

Now, truth be told, I was born about a year or two before the 'Where's Waldo' books came out. And I've honestly no clue where my parents got my name as both of them have given me different stories. But that has not stopped random people from giving me the most peculiar look when I tell them my name. And it also hasn't stopped them from calling me 'Walter' for some reason...

In short, I have nothing to do with the the 'Where's Waldo' character.

Those soulless eyes have mocked my pain for over 20 years...

But if there's something I've learned, it's that the universe has an ironic sense of humor...

For you see, back when I was about a year old baby, I was kidnapped. Causing the one and only time that it's been appropriate for someone to say "Where's Waldo?" Everything you're about to read is 100% true.

For a while, my family lived in Juarez, Mexico. Now, this was the 80's and during that time, it was perfectly normal to let children play out in the front yard. It was during one of these times that I up and disappeared.

Now, my family was understandably pretty freaked that I vanished and so one the first things they did was to check a nearby river for a body. And then they decided to ask the neighbors if they've seen me. Not one person who was asked knew where I was.

It looked like I had fallen off the face of the earth.

When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

 

 

Turns out what happened was that an 8 year old girl apparently saw me and decided that I would make a great tea party guest. And so she picked me up and took me to her house straight to her backyard. I was apparently very trusting of strangers because I went along with the WHOLE thing. I played along and made some happy baby noises because the girl's mom even heard me and thought to herself, "Wow, new toys are getting better and better" It was during this time that my parents went to her house and asked if she'd seen me. The lady even asked the girl if she'd seen me.

The little girl said no.

Seriously, nothing clicked in this lady's mind that the newfangled toy might just be me. It wasn't until a while later that the 8 year old went inside and told her mom that the 'doll' was crying and wouldn't stop. One look and about two seconds later, I was returned to my incredibly relieved parents.