A Woman's Home is Not Her Castle Unless She Has a Moat

There I was this morning, taking a break from pre-Easter-meal prep, having just cranked back in the La-Z-Boy, when a car turned into the driveway. A car unknown to Val. A tiny, four-door, misty blue-gray subcompact looking like the back end had been sliced off of it at the factory. Not a car I would have chosen to drive, myself. Nor one I would have chosen to come up my driveway.

This is a private association, you know. Not to be confused with a gated community. But we USED to have a gate with a padlock, down by the low water bridge. No thru road up here on homestead lane. Nobody maintains our roads but us. Not the city. Not the county. Not the state. Private. We even have (questionably-lettered homemade) signs that say so.

"Pony! Whose car is that?"

"Car?" He was sitting on the long couch texting, since he was on call to help me with food preparation. "There's a car?"

"Yeah. And you're going to find out who it is, because YOU are the one who's going to answer the door. Fix your hair. You look like a Duggar. Um. I meant look in the mirror. Smoothing it straight down in the front does not help."

"Why do I have to answer the door? Dad's out there."

"But WHERE?"

"Over by the garage. That's the last place I saw him going on the Gator."

"Huh. Nobody's coming up on the porch. I guess he is."

After about 5 minutes, the tiny blunt-butted car went back up the driveway. It turned to go farther up our gravel road. Deeper into no-man's-land. The direction of the headless-body-septic-tank house. As it passed in front of our homestead, it stopped a minute. Like masked Michael Myers in his blue coveralls that he stole from the tow truck driver, jamming on the brakes in the station wagon after Jamie Lee Curtis's smart-mouth friend yelled, "Hey, jerk! Speed kills!"

I sent a text to Hick: "Who was that?" He did not reply. So I called him. "Who was that?"

"Who was what?"

"In that little blue car. Who was that?"

"I don't know."

"Where are you?"

"In the BARn."

"You mean you weren't out by the garage?"

"No."

"The Pony said you were! That car came up the driveway. It was out there at least five minutes. I thought you were talking to them."

"Not me."

"What are they doing here? They went on up the road. Toward your buddy's house. You need to go up there and see what they're doing. Take the Gator. It will give you and Juno something to do."

"I have plenty to do. I'm cutting boards."

"Huh. Maybe they were scouting out the house. When all your stuff disappears, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Huh. I don't know what they were doing here."

"Are you going to see where they went?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

Let the record show that he did not. Don't know what's going on here. I DO know that my sweet, sweet Juno ran over that direction barking. That's what made me think Hick was out there. Maybe my fierce guard dog scared them into staying in their car.

Funny thing. At 3:35, we had a call from a local number, over in bill-paying town, 20 miles away, that sounded like a bad connection on a cell phone, purporting to be a roofing solutions company, wanting to set up a time to come look at our roof due to recent storm damage. Heh, heh. We just GOT a new roof! And who works on a Saturday afternoon the day before Easter, making cold calls to drum up business for roofing? Something fishy here...

When I'm retired in three months, who knows what would-be crimes I might disrupt!