A Friday Funny At My Expense

It was just over one year ago.  We had just sat down to lunch and I asked our three little children to bow there heads and close their eyes while I gave thanks for our food.  Our table sat right in front of the big glass sliding door, overlooking our property, which goes about a half mile back.  I closed my prayer with an "amen" and opened my eyes only to see a man dressed totally in black complete with a ski mask  running around back behind in the brush where the wild blackberries grow.  I thought I was hallucinating.

So you can enter into this story better, this is the dreary winter view from the glass sliding door - where my "surprise" met my eyes.

And this would be the ninja man's view of our house.

  We live out in the country on seventeen acres, so the only living things we see behind our house are stray cats, deer, rabbits and the occasional coyote.  I was almost too shocked to panic and blinked my eyes really hard thinking I was imaging the man, but no, he was still there, darting around like a mad man.  Then he would disappear over the hill in the back only to reappear less than a minute later.  Then I saw him behind the big evergreen tree and he was aiming a gun.  I saw some puffs of smoke come up out of the gun. He was shooting, but there was no sound!  I called my hubby, thinking maybe this was the surveyor who was supposed to come and mark off our property.  Perhaps he was diabetic and was having an attack.  They do crazy things when they get low on sugar! Obviously, my business-as-usual hubby couldn't help me being fifteen miles away, so I called my next door neighbor who we lovingly refer to as "Neighbor Grandpa".  Drat.  No answer.  I'm now starting to shake and sweat.  The kids are eating, and not sure why mommy isn't.  I call the neighbor across the street.  I'm rather frantic.  "ERIC, THERE'S A MAN DRESSED IN BLACK WITH A GUN RUNNING AROUND MY BACK YARD!!!!!  HURRY!!!!  GET OVER HERE NOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!  AND BRING YOUR GUN!!!!!!"  At this point, I'm peaking out windows, trying to keep an eye on the madman.  That's when I saw him hop the fence and run down to the neighbor's house.  I called Eric back.  Nevermind.  Looks like college age boys are visiting their mother and little brothers and trying out the new paint ball guns they got for Christmas. Though I've had a few encounters with strangers on my property since, I haven't had any masked gunmen back that I know of!  :)