Homeland Security

With all this political talk about homeland security, I thought it best to consider my own options. Now that I own a condo, I want it to be safe. Sure, my condo building has a security door on the first level (which can be inadvertently left open by leaving it ajar—and why doesn’t the door have a voice warning on it, like cars. Something like, “The door is ajar. Close it you dumbass.”). Still, I thought I should consider security options for my individual condo.

While I’m lucky in that my condo allows dogs (because, well, how else could the association afford to fertilize the lawn, retrieve a delectable Hasenpfeffer dinner, or hire a greeter who snarled at you while he humped your leg?), I just thought that having a dog was too much work for me. I mean, I can barely touch toilet paper that’s been dirtied, how am I supposed to pick up warm, smelly dog poop, and deposit it elsewhere on the lawn when no one is looking? Thus, I gave up that possibility of homeland security.

Then I considered purchasing a gun. Oh, sure, I was a boy scout and we fired 22 rifles at sand dunes and targets (that looked oddly like our enemies—girl scouts—at the time). But I never really was much for going hunting and shooting living, breathing, Bambi-like animals (unless I was watching the porno Bambi Takes a Licking While She’s Tricking or If You Shoot on Bambi, You Own Her—but that was a different type of shooting altogether). However, I didn’t think I could shoot a living, breathing person (unless it was Bambi and we already discussed that), and so I gave up on that idea of security.

An alarm system on my new condo seemed perfect, until I realized what that meant. I previously lived in a home with a security system and can attest that I actually forgot everything (including my name, social security number, address and age) once the alarm was actually blaring and I was locked inside the house. It was like that Get Smart, Cone of Silence—I couldn’t think—I couldn’t do anything—I was immobilized. Aliens could do anal probes on me and I’d still be trying to figure out, “What’s the damned code? Was it my social security numbers added together plus my age? Or my street address minus my unit number? Or was it my I.Q. times my ring size mines my waist size?” By the time I actually figured it out, the entire police department had arrived  (they have nothing better to do on a Sunday night when all the doughnut shops are closed), there were television news helicopters circling around shining spotlights into my windows and the SWAT team had shot tear gas into my living through the closed windows. Of course, after clearing this incident up as a misunderstanding, I found china missing as well as my jewelry. When I asked what happened to it, the heavily armed policeman explained, “We took a couple of souvenirs as reminders of all the excitement. You don’t mind, do you?” I knew this was a rhetorical question that I couldn’t say “no” to, unless I wanted to face major fines for the false alarm and having “hazardous” broken windows from the tear gas attack, so I said, “Sure, would you like the matching soup server or china protectors?”

Since I didn’t have any other options, I installed a home security system. That first night, I had an ingenious idea of how to be even more secure. I placed a large box with my valuables outside my front door along with a six-pack of beer. On top of these things, I attached a note that read, “Take it all, but please don’t set off my home security alarm. It’s a bitch to reset.” Then I locked my front door, certain that my home was secure.