In Which Dark Humor Lightens the Load

Please indulge me while I mine my recent traumatic experience for comedy gold. (See previous post.) It helps me cope.

Yeah, so the first words out of my mouth were pretty intimidating. I said, "Are you serious?!" Then I had them quaking with the old "Really? Ski masks? You guys are SUCH a cliche."

Okay, I didn't say that last part. In fact, after I said "Are you serious?" that was the last time I spoke without being spoken to.

So one of them orders me to turn over, then presses a pillow on my head, and a gun into the pillow. The next thing he said was "Mffffluer jnafvn aowur?"

I said, "Um, I can't hear you. There's a pillow on my head."

So he removed the pillow, and said, "Where your jewelry at?" Then he put the pillow back on my head, and I said, "Mffffluer jnafvn aowur."

So the other guy says, "Move the pillow, Dawg."

(Quick note to Captain Crawley of the Charles City Police Department: Their names were Dawg and Dawg.)

And I told him, but they were pretty disappointed. I shop at Kohls.

"Where your GOOD jewelry at!"

"Hey, you'll have to talk to my husband. I've been asking that same question for ten years."

I didn't really say that. There was a gun in the room. Actually two. They had mine, too. The problem was, I don't have any good jewelry. So they took the rings from my wedding finger and moved on to the next item on their Christmas list.

"Where your money at?"

"I don't have any."

"WHERE YOUR CASH AT?!"

"I only have a dollar because I went to Costco and they only take American Express which, as you know, I don't have, so I had to pay in cash and by the time..."

"SHUT UP!"

"Okay."

See, this is what they didn't understand. We never have cash. We put everything on credit, then pay it off each month. You get air miles that way. And pretty soon, I'm gonna use a few thousand of them. But anyway, they didn't like that I only had a dollar, and moved on.

"Where your safe at?"

Okay, see, we don't have one of those either, and by now I'm worried they'll think I'm lying, so what did I do?

"I'm really sorry, but we don't have a safe."

I APOLOGIZED to the robbers for not having a safe. So one of them finds some weedwhacker filament and ties my wrists and ankles, then leaves the room. Well, damn. I got out of that in like three seconds. But I didn't have anywhere to go (out the window didn't occur to me for some reason) but I didn't have time, anyway. I hear one of them coming up the stairs so I QUICK QUICK tried to tie myself back up, but I couldn't manage to get my wrists behind me and tie at the same time, so I got caught, and I held up the orange filament, and I said, "I'm sorry, this came loose," then lay back down and put the pillow back over my head in what I thought was a very polite and helpful manner.

He didn't have time to punish me,  thank GOD, because the other guy comes in and says, "What's the pin number on your credit card?"

Sigh. I don't have a credit card with a pin number.

"How you get cash?"

"Well, see, people pay me with checks, then I go to the bank and put some of them in my checking account and some of them I cash out so that I can buy whatever I need from the..."

"SHUT UP!"

"Okay." (By now, we have whole pillow thing worked out.)

"Where your ATM card?"

Sigh. "Well, see, I put my ATM card in my jacket pocket, and then I gave that jacket to my mother, and she found the ATM card in the pocket, but by then I had left Florida, so..."

"SHUT UP!"

"Okay."

"You give me a pin number for this credit card right now."

"I don't have one."

"RIGHT NOW!"

"0385."

(Note to any armed robbers reading this: ha ha, I made it up.)

Then they wrapped me in duct tape (because weed whacker filament, they learned, was no match for me), and had they not wrapped OVER the weed whacker filament, I would have got out of that, too (no, really, because there was a knife sticking up in the wisher washer drawer and I was able to...oh, never mind. It didn't cut through the filament. Foiled again.

And they left. And for four hours, I crawled around on the kitchen floor trying to get the door open so I could call for help. (See previous post for gruesome details.)

And now I answer the door with a gun. I need to talk to the UPS guy and work out a doorbell code. He just delivered some flowers, and doesn't need a trigger happy armed robbery victim answering the door with a gun. Neither do you. So if you come see me, ring three times in rapid succession and when I say, "Who's there?" say 0385 and I'll let you in after my Doberman Pinscher frisks you in that special way he has.

Kidding. I don't have a Doberman.

Yes, I do.

Okay, I don't, but I'm going to get one. Maybe two. Don't rub meat on your crotch before visiting.

Thanks for your good wishes which have made me feel GREAT. I'm no longer avoiding the phone. I'm still me, and one of these days, I'll look back on all this and think, "Why the hell DON'T I have good jewelry?"