What a First Day.

On New Year's Eve, my wife and I celebrated with fireworks with my family. After midnight, everyone left and we sat on the couch for a few minutes to decompress before heading to bed.

I connected to the internet and was happily surfing online when I happened to glance out the front window and see a man walking up to the front door in a white T-shirt. I bolted, led my wife into the room, and grabbed the gun. At about that time I heard him knock on the door.

Keep in mind that all of this is happening at roughly 1:30 in the morning. We never have anyone come up, much less in the middle of the night. The closest house is some distance away, and the fact that our unknown visitor had not arrived in a car made it even more suspicious.

I decided to go to the door because I knew that he had seen me, and I didn't want him to wander off into the night, not knowing if he would ever return. (Like Jude Law from Cold Mountain, I don't want to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.)

Thus, I gave my wife the gun, locked her in the bedroom, and walked to the door. I cracked it first, with the chain, and asked him what he needed. I heard a slurred voice say that he had ran off the road a while back and needed to use the phone.

At this point it became clear that the fellow was drunk- I could see his bloodshot eyes through the crack in the door. Either that, or he was an Academy Award winning actor. I perhaps should have called the sheriff, but the last thing I wanted is a drunk holding a grudge over me.

So I passed him the phone, and shortly afterward went out on the deck to talk with him. He seemed like a nice guy, despite the fact that he was more than a bit tipsy. He told me he had fallen asleep at the wheel, and when he woke up he found the car smoking in a ditch. Then, based on where the car was found later, he had walked over a mile in pitch blackness to find our place. (Like I said, we live out in the middle of nowhere.)

To make a long story short, my wife's father ran out and followed me as I took him to Yazoo City. He offered to pay for the ride and was quite amicable throughout the whole affair. It still scared the hell out of me, however- precisely because you never know who might show up at your doorstep.

Afterwards, my wife and I have taken certain precautions. Namely, we've turned off the front porch light, which throws the whole property into relative darkness. Secondly, we've begun closing the large metal gate at the end of our yard. And finally, we've begun letting our two large, black dogs out at night. We think that doing so makes our home less attractive to those thinking about walking up. I don't mind helping people, but I don't want to put my wife or myself in danger, either.

I hope your first day of the new year was more relaxing than mine.