I don’t like to set our house alarm.

I know. I know.

See, the thing is, there’s always someone in the house and when we are in the house, if a door opens, an alarm beeps. That, friends, is super fun. Actually, truth be told, it’s more comforting to me than annoying, except when, at 2am, the door to our garage spontaneously swings open and beeps while the husband is out playing hockey.

My reasoning for not setting alarm is many-fold. I am lazy. I am afraid of setting it wrong. I have nothing in the house that’s worth stealing. This is true. I mean, sure, I have nice dresses and a really lovely iMac and some TVs. But those are all replaceable. My three sets of cutlery are all stainless steel; I don’t own a set of silver than has been passed down eight generations. I have very little in the way of sentimental jewels—my engagement and wedding rings are really the only important ones and when I travel, the rings travel with me. So, no, I don’t typically set the alarm.

So, obviously, I know.

As soon as the husband sent me an email with pre-PEI trip reminders and #3 on the list was “MAKE SURE YOU SET THE ALARM!” I just knew.

“Good evening, Mr. Martell. Your alarm has been triggered and we are seeing some motion in the front hall of your home.”

Oh, goody.

There’s nothing like being awoken—while you are on vacation at the eastern tip of Canada—to find out that there’s movement in your home. You see, even though there really is absolutely nothing worth taking in our home, unless of course you count our dancing Big Lebowski Jesus and an endless supply of Tic Tacs, I forgot about the emotional effect it could have. Once upon a time I had $1,000 stolen from me from someone I know and that violating feeling? It never really leaves you. As I said back then and I’ll say it again, I lost a lot more than money that night. 

We knew it wasn’t our nanny. And we knew it wasn’t our dog, so we did the only thing we could think of—force our friend Shane to get out of his cozy bed and do a little drive-by and see if anything suspicious is happening. When he saw that the giant iMac screen was still standing unsteadily on the plastic folding table, we assumed it was a case of the phantom garage door opening or our magic Delta faucet that occasionally turns itself on, and thanked Shane for not getting killed and sent him home.

(Dude. Our house is kind of creepy.)

Seriously. I am never setting the alarm again.

If they want the Jesus, they can have the Jesus.