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Wednesday, June 10, 2015

"Morgan": The Gift of This Morning's Home Invasion



I woke up this morning hearing the rumblings of an unknown who had entered into our apartment. No door bell. No ding dong. Struggled for consciousness I heard him going from room to room singing, "Morgan", first softer then louder. "Morgan". Who was Morgan and why was he in my house? Why was this guy looking for him? In MY house! Was a timer ticking off my last seconds? He goes into my daughter's room and I'm still waking up thinking, "What am I going to do?", as he then comes down the hall towards my room singing again, "Morgan". I know the names of the maintenance men, JJ, Reggie, Jason. There is no "Morgan". Before he gets to my door I yell out, "What the #$%^& are you doing in my house?" He said, "I knocked on the door". I bellowed, "Get out". He said, "Okay then" with this weird "It's your loss" tone. Did the door shut? I sleep naked. "What do I do?" I can't go running around the house naked to find "Morgan". Then he actually goes into my daughter's room two doors down singing "Morgan". I feel sick. My daughter's name is not "Morgan and I can't be having that. The three of us just moved into this new apartment complex. It had been plagued by fires. We got a good deal on the rent. "They caught the person starting the fires" we were reassured.


When we moved into this new place my wife put a baseball bat by my bedside window. I'm not a baseball player. It has been sitting unused since the last home invasion. The previous home invader stole my daughter's video camera and jewelry. Then he came into my room and saw me sleeping. I must look like Darth Vader with his helmet off. He fled from the front door leaving it wide open. Maybe it was a woman.

On 9/11 I purchased a 9mm pistol. I don't like guns. After 9/11 I didn't know where things were headed so I figured, "just in case whatever". My dad considered guns after Kennedy was shot, now it was my turn. After the first home invasion I learned something. My gun was locked up under the bed. I was dead asleep. They could have done the Psycho dance on me. What if I had shot them somehow? What if they spurted HIV arterial blood all over the carpet? Carpet is hard to clean, but it is quiet and I don't like the clanging of hardwood floors. Who wants a chalk outline of HIV dead person on the carpet? How do you work that into pleasant conversation? "Oh that's just HIV-dead guy outline, you can step over it...".

After practicing martial arts for years I learned, contradictorily, that I don't like hurting people. Its not the fear of being hurt, its the fear of hurting someone else and all the terrible feelings that come. People are precious. I have this glitch.


I don't like people coming into my house without asking when I don't know what their intentions are. So there is huge conflict between the guilt of inflicting lasting damage and avoiding harm. That is a terrible thing to carry around. There is no Undo command for lasting damage. I have a friend in a wheelchair and I think, "How can we undo his lasting damage?" You can't. Wallerian degeneration. Christopher Reeve had that. Dana died of cancer and a broken heart.


I called the property manager. I called my wife. I called my son who created a Silicon Valley security startup after the first home invasion. Then I got a call from the company that provides apnea supplies. The lady let me vent. The guy was gone. I knew my daughter was okay but I needed to sit down and talk to her. She said a man came into her room singing, "Working". She said, "She didn't like it that a man came into her room while she was sleeping". She said he sprayed something in her bathroom and worried it could make her cat sick.

I was concerned too. Last week a bug man sprayed the apartment with a mist that glimmered and hovered as sunlight streamed through the window. I asked, "What's in that?". The bug man said "Delta Dust".

"Delta Dust". My wife had cancer. Her dad died of cancer. My mom and dad died of cancer. My uncle died of cancer. What is "Delta Dust"?

When I called the property manager she said we were, "scheduled to be sprayed" and that they give out keys to everyone who needs them. I must therefore ASSUME that he was singing "ORKIN" as he went from room to room. "ORKIN".



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