My New Home Security System

So, my street is all torn to hell.

The city started repaving my residential street a month ago (thanks, stimulus money!). It certainly needed it, as it had numerous potholes big enough to swallow pets and small children. But with any remodelling project comes a heck of a lot of inconvenience. My street has a circle at both ends and only one way out, so for the past month we've been delayed by lane closures and sometimes complete street closures as the one open lane is being used to hold the truck pouring the concrete.

Good times, good times.

This week it's our turn to bear the largest burden of inconvenience. Until next Thursday, we do not have access to our driveway. The street directly in front of our house is currently torn down to the dirt. Because we are at the bottom of the street and the area being repaired extends about 6 houses up, we have to park on the street a good ways away from our house.

For a family who has always parked both cars in the garage, it's taking some getting used to.

Yesterday Ainsley and I arrived home after a long day at work and school and a long-ish walk down the street. Out of habit, we chose to go in through the garage via the keypad on the outside.

The dead and desiccated insects above the keypad door should have been a warning.

I flipped up the little door, prepared to type in our password, and shrieked:

Guarding the keypad was a large spider that appeared to be in the wolf family of arachnids. He (or she) was stretched out in his comfy lair with his body and legs blocking all the numbers as if to say, "Go ahead. Type in the password. I dare ya."

I couldn't even bring myself to close the little door back.

"Hey, Ainsley, let's go in through the front door for a change. It'll be fun."

I eventually got the itching and shivering to stop. But I did such a bang-up job being scared in front of my daughter that when she went outside to play later in the day, she wouldn't go anywhere near the garage door. I do so love spreading my phobias.

I asked the spider-killer-in-chief of the Cranky house to go out and kill it when he got home, but we got distracted by Beatles Rock Band (that's going to be a whole different post) and forgot about it. But by this morning, when the three of us left the house together through the garage and had to use the keypad to close everything back up, Spidey wasn't there.

Which was almost disappointing, because he/she/it made a most excellent home protection system against anyone who might guess our code and who is also afraid of spiders. I know it would have done a great job keeping away some of you frequent readers (including but not limited to Karen, corycaleb, MelMart, and Mrs. Rob K.), should you ever decide you've had enough of being law-abiding citizens and decide to rob me of my collections of Gap clearance t-shirts, or Garth Brooks CDs, or apple-themed kitchen decor. I could just see a burglar coming up to the house and trying to open the garage with the code and seeing the ginormous spider and saying, "Well, you know, I don't want their PS3 that bad. Maybe I'll try the next house."


Today when I go home I'll probably avoid the keypad altogether. Like most normal Americans, I'll go home through my own front door. Unlike most normal Americans, though, it will be because I'm a huge chicken. My own security system does too good a job keeping me away from the garage door.