Clarification

Frankly, I'm sitting here at a loss for things to say. I took down yesterday's post because it makes me sound far crazier than I actually am. Well, that depends on the day, really.

So, for the four or five people that read that post, let's get some things straight:

1) I live in an area that is kind of wooded and sparsely populated. I hear noises, sometimes, and sometimes those startle me. Not all that often, but sometimes they do.

2) If I'm not going far, I tend not to lock my door, especially when there's no one else around. In this case, I walked around the side of the building, across the lawn and back. That classifies as not far, and therefore it would have made a lot of sense if the door had been unlocked when I got back to it.

3) The door was locked.

4) I was holding my keys in my hand at the time.

5) My short term memory has been going to hell in a handcart lately.

6) Two explanations: I forgot that I locked it behind me, or someone has walked in and locked the door behind them. One benign, the other, maybe not so much.

7) What do you do when faced with two equally plausible scenarios? Go with the lowest common denominator and choose caution. Unlock the door, call loudly up the stairs so you can be sure that if there is someone up there, they will hear you. Then you walk away for a while, giving that person, if they're there, a decent amount of time to show themselves out.

8) Returning a while later, it is only reasonable that I put all my suspicions to rest by checking all of the closets, armed with a large knife.

9) I don't do this often.

True, I was kind of panicky and maybe a touch irrational at the time, but underneath all that there was some rational thought there.

I'm not completely nuts.