So let's just say that until I met my boyfriend I thought suburbia was the only thing I'd ever know and I wouldn't ever find myself alone in the middle of the woods with two German Shepherds in a huge house. His parents have a lovely place in the northwest corner of Connecticut and all things considered it's actually not that isolated, but to a girl who's used to being able to see your neighbors mowing their lawns I could very well have been in the wilderness for all I knew. Before I found my current job at iHeart I spent a lot of time in this house and I'd be alone for most of the day while everyone was at work. It was a gloomy autumn day and most of it went by uneventfully when all of a sudden the dogs start going NUTS, like absolutely APE. I look out the window and see a car I don't recognize with a man I don't recognize just sitting there in the driveway. The driveway is pretty long and set back from the road so thinking he was just lost or trying to turn around was out of the question since there'd be no need to come all the way to the front of the house just to turn around.
Now the thing is, my mother raised me to be a survivalist, not in the Bear Grylls sense but more in the "trust no one until they've proven otherwise" and "always be aware of your surroundings" sort of way. Not a fearful, anxiety driven sense of safety but "I am prepared for every possible outcome and my guard is never down", so I've always just been naturally analytical. My mind immediately goes to "If they were expecting someone wouldn't they have told them when they work?" and "Why would someone who's lost come all the way up the driveway in the middle of a cell phone dead zone to find their way back?" Needless to say I was spooked.
I immediately get up from the bed I was sitting on to make sure I wasn't visible through the window. The man sat there for a very long time with the dogs barking until finally he got out. He stands in the driveway looking a little squirrelly and then walks to the door. This is about the time when I remember that NONE OF THE DOORS ARE LOCKED. It's not a thing people do in this area cause there's literally no one around but again, coming from my upbringing of locking the door immediately even if I'm going to leave again in 5 minutes, I hadn't thought of it at all. This is when the dogs stop barking and calm down and I realize that I can't see where he is anymore.
What would you think? I immediately thought he got in the house somehow and call my father and my boyfriends mother, both of whom tell me to call the police. I'm army crawling around the top floor of this house so I'm not seen through the window but that I can check all around to see if he's in the backyard or the side of the house. Another quirky thing about this area of Connecticut is that there are no town police, there are only state troopers who are half an hour away. Luckily they had a trooper that was sent out to the local hospital already who was only 10 minutes away, and the trooper on the phone stayed on the line with me until the other arrived. This man was a 7 foot tall wall of a human being which I was so thankful for and he did a full sweep all around the house and the garage and even up into the screened in porch (which of course, again, was unlocked). He finally knocks on the front door and says "Did you see that there was a note taped here?" No way in hell was I opening any doors until he got there so obviously I hadn't and it turned out the man in the driveway was my boyfirend's ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ART TEACHER. His family had lived in the house prior to my boyfriend's family and he had just gone on a walk around the property. First of all, who thinks that's ok???? Oh it's totally fine to walk around someone else's property if I just LEAVE A NOTE. The car was still there when my boyfriend's family came home from work and he managed to get back in the car and leave without anybody noticing.
To their credit my boyfriend and his family also thought that an old teacher coming by for a stroll at dusk was extremely odd and more than a little inappropriate but they mostly thought it was incredibly amusing. I am still not amused.
SSDGM