My nana, crime fighter

Today, I decided that I would finally pretend to be manly and climb the big ladder that I have hidden under the house. I hide it under the house because I figure if I leave it out, some miscreant will use it to climb through a window in my house. This, of course, is ridiculous because what kind of idiotic thief would use a ladder to climb to the second story when s/he could easily go through the easy way, i.e. the bottom floor?

I think this fear of an invasion from above comes from my childhood. Thanks, Sigmund. You see, the lady two doors down (this was back in the 70s), left her ladder out one day and some thugs (I don't really know if they were thugs or not) broke in using the ladder. Childhood events are hard to shake.

All of this musing on home invasions reminds me of my nana, who died a few years ago at the age of 99. She came home once when she was in her 80s and someone had broken in. She walked upstairs and some big dude was walking out of one of the rooms. Now, my nana was TINY, but she took no shit from anyone. That happens when you have to raise four kids on your own because your husband is nuttier than a fruitcake and committed. Anyway, she looked at Mr. Break-in and said sweetly "Hi. Is there anything I can help you with?" Can you imagine being a big bad nasty thief and being asked this by a 4 foot 6" 75 pound octogenarian? Needless to say, it threw him off guard and he said "No" and left. Of course he could have gonged her on the head with his pinky and that would have been that, but no, he bid her adieu and left sheepishly. That is a close approximation of the events. I wasn't there and if I were I would have been hiding behind my nana with soiled drawers.

Well damn, this post was supposed to be about me climbing the ladder and scrubbing that green fungus off the side of the house that has been accumulating recently. Too bad, cause that would have been a COOL STORY, BRO. I saw that on a t-shirt.