Monday, January 19, 2009

The early bird doesn't always catch the worm, sometimes he gets shot

It was about 5:55 last night when I heard an explosion outside my house and, having learned some street smarts from my days in suburban DC, I quickly grabbed my daughter and sat the confusion out for a few minutes in the hallway. Stay away from windows. Stay away from doors. That's all I remember thinking. I don't necessarily live in the kind of neighborhood that expects these random shots of gunfire or exploding meth-making lab kitchens. An explosion in my suburban 'hood is somewhat alarming.

A few minutes passed and I didn't hear sirens or any screaming men/women/children and I proceeded with my night accordingly. I have one shady neighbor but quickly concluded that, again, my 'hood is not the type of subdivision to make it on the nightly news and that he probably didn't shoot his wife in bed. The excitement was over and I had to put a sense of security back into my daughter's precious little head. No worries. She was expecting her friend, Jazmine, for a sleepover. Time to get the party started.

This morning the girls woke me up with homemade bugles and a loud chanting of these two words, on repeat: "WE'RE HUNGRY! WE'RE HUNGRY! WE'RE HUNGRY!" Oh lord, shaddup!

Three waffles later, we were all dressed for our morning outing to the pet store (since I cannot afford the zoo these days, hamsters are just as much fun to watch, for free!). We walked out the door and I saw this on the side of my house, or my parents' house, and immediately remember the explosion from last night:

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Yep. The cops say it's shotgun shrapnel. The pellets are a rubbery, purple-y substance that hit so hard and left the pieces lodged in the brick and mortar behind the vinyl siding. Jazmine's mom dropped her off approximately five minutes after all this shit sprayed my front door.

Thank goodness they were late.

2 comments:

Sra said...

Wow, talk about luck!

Dena said...

Yeah, Jazmine's mom practically hugged me this afternoon when I told her what happened because she HAD been running late. Just imagine if they'd been on time...oh gawd!