<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Continued.....</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">I'm assuming no one here knows my sister Rebecca, and I'm almost positive she's not on the Drool, though she is on Facebook. The thing is, my sister isn't supposed to know about what Ken, young Charlie, and I found when we got to my mother's house, at least not until my mother gets up the courage to tell her. My sister has long been unhappy about our mother buying into this neighborhood, even though it puts our mother so conveniently close to us and comes with wonderful neighbors in every house on the block. My sister feels the area has too much crime, though I believe it has no more than anywhere else. So, if you can't keep a secret from my sister or refrain from writing about this on Facebook, you best not read any further. Otherwise I'll be in deep, serious trouble. I'm not kidding. My sister would flay me alive if she found out. But it makes for a story that's simply too good not to be told, so here it goes. Remember, I'm trusting you guys.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 17px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">What we found when we got to my mother's was that she'd just been visited by three burglars while she was home. They came in through a back window after first ringing the doorbell and not getting any answer. Fortunately my mother wasn't hurt, but she and the burglars all shared a big "Oh, S**T!!!" moment when they each realized the other was there in the house. I can only imagine the cold feeling of dread that came over the burglar who was going through a drawer downstairs when he heard my mother flush the toilet right by his ear on the other side of the wall. My mother told the police that the feeling that washed over her was one of great anger. Apparently she burst out of the bathroom, saw her uninvited visitors, and said something to the effect of, "What the hell are you doing in here? Get out! Get out now!" </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 17px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">That was exactly what the burglars wanted to do, but the one out in front was having trouble with the lock on the back door. By the time he finally got it open, my mother was over there with him, in her pink flannel nightgown and in his face. She was so furious that she reached out and grabbed the front of his clothing the way you would a naughty child's. Later she told the police that it was just as well he had wrenched himself free because she didn't know what she would have done with him had she managed to hold onto him. The other two burglars ran up behind her and pushed her back against her recycling bins and into the wall in their haste to get out the door. All three sped through the back yard, jumped the fence, crossed the alley, and headed toward the public housing area across the street. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 17px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">The police told my mother that statistics show that a burglar returns 40 percent of the time. They think it's because the burglar's had a chance to see what all is there to be taken and has a feel for the layout of the house. So, in a gesture of closing the barn door *after* the horse has escaped, Ken secured all the windows with nails that very night. If anyone wants in now, they'll have to take the whole window frame out, which has happened in a few of the burglaries. But at least the person doing it will have to work a whole lot harder at it now. Funny, but I'd been talking to my mother just two days earlier about securing those windows, but she hadn't wanted to damage the paint work to do it. She felt differently about that after meeting her burglars.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 17px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">What does one do to try to begin to help someone get over the violation of a home burglary? One offers to stay the night, for weeks on end if necessary. I did, but my mother said she'd much rather have Charlie stay with her, and Ken and I could go on home. She said it's because young Charlie's bark sounds like a bigger dog's than Elsinore's, but I think it's because Charlie's a better snuggler, and my mother wanted him to sleep on the bed with her. Charlie's never stayed overnight with my mother, either with Elsinore or by himself. They usually go over together for daylong visits several times a week but never for overnights. I wasn't sure how he'd do (Ken calls him Mama's Boy, and not as a compliment), but I explained to Charlie that he was being given a very important job and I knew he could do it. I was relieved to see he wasn't too concerned about us leaving him there that night, and Elsinore seemed to be fine with Charlie not being home with us that night.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 17px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">My mother reported the next day that she and Charlie had slept all morning without wanting to get up to go out or have breakfast, and, disappointingly, Charlie had chosen to sleep on his own bed instead of hers. But later in the day he did decide to use the step stool to get up onto her bed to nap next to her. The burglars have yet to return, and my mother has decided she's fine at night without the dogs. She's keeping the alarm on most of the time now, not just at night. </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; ">She remains amazingly unshaken by the experience. </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 17px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">So that was young Charlie's New Year's Day weekend: fighting off a chiropractic adjustment and providing in-home security services to a plucky old lady. Those of you out there who think you might try it--don't mess with my mom or my bassets. They'll get you!</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 17px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">And don't let on to my sister or mother that I've written this, or they'll get me, too!</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 17px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">Elizabeth</font></div>
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