Don't Do This!

This afternoon, we all went out to do some errands in town. We wanted to
buy a newspaper because Logan and Mommy's picture was in the Sunday
"Territorian" newspaper (a pic of them cooling off in the pool to beat
the summer heat). It was getting close to our dinner time so Mommy and
Delenn were dropped off at home. Daddy and Logan went over to our
friend's place to check on their cat and to water the plants. While
Mommy was nursing Delenn in a chair in the living room, she saw the
shadow of a person move out on the back porch. She thought at first it
might be Logan, but thought that'd be quite strange as Daddy never comes
in the side gate. Her reaction was to immediately jump up and rush to
the sliding glass door... whereupon she spied an aboriginal teenage or
young 20-ish man on the porch. She rushed out at him -- screaming and
hollering some obscenities which she won't repeat here, but the gist was
-- "what the %*^& do you think you're doing?" And "Get the %*^& out of
here you %*^&..." and as he scaled the wall to rush out to the hill
behind us... "Yeah, you better run you %*^& %*^& %*^&." He turned
towards the side gate (which is extremely difficult to open), but
changed his mind and scaled the wall in the back and ran off over the
hillside behind our flat.

Then Mommy regained her mind -- she realized she had just rushed at a 6
foot guy with a baby in her arms. Yes, there was power in her words,
but absolutely no sense (or safety) in her reaction. Yes, the police
were called, but of course there's not much that can be done. And here
in Alice, this is a common occurrence with little to no consequences
anyway.

An aside... this is not the first time Mommy has caught someone trying
to break in. When she lived in Denver, she was watching TV when she
noticed someone looking in the window. As calm as light breeze, she got
up, got a flash light and went running out the door, into the alley and
chased after the guy. Again, when reality set in, she realized how
absolutely stupid her reaction was. In fact, I swore I would never be
so dumb in such a situation again -- but in truth, in both cases I just
reacted... there wasn't much thinking involved.

Next time -- I hope my reaction is to either immediately call the police
and/or get a camera and start snapping pictures of the perpetrator.
Safer and more effective. Hindsight is 20-20.