We had a security system installed yesterday, with fancy motion detectors and smoke detectors and various other bells and whistles that we are still uncertain how to operate. So far we have not set the damn thing off but it’s only a matter of time.

Our neighborhood has had somewhere between 30 and 40 break ins since the beginning of March (and of course we had our own brush with the criminal element, although there was no breaking involved in that incident, just spitting and STEALING MY STEREO AMP). We joke that we bought this house because the neighborhood was so nice, but apparently we have moved to the hood.

You know, the hood with all the big SUVs and the country club in the middle. THAT hood.

The MO for the burglaries is this: the perps (can I use that word? I can think of an alternative but this is a family-friendly blog) ring the doorbell and then when no one answers they kick the door in and rob the house. Since I’m here all day and the kids are here more of the day than I would really like, that’s a wee bit scary, or at least it was to my mother and mother-in-law, both of whom suggested that we GET AN ALARM ALREADY. So we did.

We’re good kids.

The man came yesterday and spent four hours drilling holes in various parts of my house and running wires and doing I don’t know what all to get this all hooked up. And then he tested the system and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD IS THAT THING LOUD. My apologies in advance to my neighbors because when we set the alarm off — AND WE WILL — you will ALL hear it.

This morning after Wade left for work I emailed him to remind him that I had written a substantial check to the man yesterday to pay for the alarm — he likes to check our account balances on line and see how we’re doing, which is fine except that this one particular check was for a fairly big part of the current balance which meant that there’s not as much money actually available as there might appear to be. I don’t know what I thought Wade might do today that would require him to have access to the FULL balance of our checking account (buy me a diamond studded whisk, perhaps, or some mink flip flops), but I thought he ought to know.

I got this response, which is of course a paraphrase of dialog from The Simpsons (duh):

Alarm Guy: That’ll be $450.00.

Wade: WHAT?!? Are you KIDDING?!?

Alarm Guy: Sir, surely you can’t put a price on your family’s safety?

Wade: You’d like to think not … but here we are.