You know how you tell yourself sometimes, “that’s something only happen on TV.” If you don’t, well, it’s something I tell myself to soothe my crazy imagination.

One of those things was I would never have a policeman standing in my house, not to mention police officers use the wall of my garage as a shield with a rifle in hand, aiming to shoot. Well, those things happened and I am now living next door to a crime scene.

Saturday morning started ordinary. I slept until I was awake, made breakfast, read blogs, watched movies, and crochet, until my gut told me something was happening and made me look up from my phone to see flashing lights outside my living room window. My first instinct was to yank my earbuds out of my ears and shout at mom to investigate what was going on but before I could do that, knock, knock, knock.

Mom opened the door where stood a policeman. “There is an active shooter in the area and as a precaution, I need you to evacuate.”

Mom was befuddled, “Shooting? Where?”

“Next door.”

“Oh, my goodness.” Then she started to panic, wrenching open the closet to put on her shoes while ordering me to get her a pair of socks. When I returned, she was gone. That’s when my phone began vibrating. “Get over here to the neighbor’s.”

“Which neighbor?” I sprinted out the front door and tried not to pay attention to the policewoman standing not 30 feet from me holding a rifle while using my house as a shield.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” Mom scolded the moment I showed up.

“I didn’t hear anything. My earbuds were in.” Why did this feel like it was my fault? I couldn’t hear anything, not when mom blasts her phone and tablet on full volume and the only way for me to hear my video is by earbuds.

Meanwhile, my neighbor was listening to the police scanner on his phone. There’s an app for that, who knew?

“Someone has a psychotic episode and opened fire,” he informed as more police cars arrived at the scene. I stood by my neighbor’s living room window, watching intently even though I couldn’t see much.

According to my neighbor’s wife, she saw a guy limping and next thing she knew, the police showed up.

“Did you lock the front door?” Mom asked. It would be the first of four times she would ask me in the next 5 minutes. I wasn’t that stupid, even in a mad dash, I grabbed the keys and locked the door. After all, it’s my house and I had no interest of any theft occurrence while the cops were trying to get the shooter to surrender next door. “You should go close your garage.” She said to her brother before yanking the door open and crossed the street to close her brother’s garage despite the protests to stay inside from the sheriff and several police officers.

Does she not understand the definition of an active shooter situation?

When she opened the door, I heard the bullhorns outside, “Come out with your hands raised, nothing in your pocket, nothing in your hands.”

Standing by the window, I waited what felt like an eternity until a man in t-shirt and shorts slowly crossed the street to the police officer. From my perspective, he looked sleepy as if being woken from a nap. He got on his knees as two police officers slapped handcuffs on him. Shortly after, every one was free to return home but just as I settled on the couch to continue on my crochet, mom invited a police officer in because apparently, she couldn’t mind her own business. The police officer asked a few questions and informed us he’s waiting on the CSI unit to arrive to assess.

Despite not knowing what a CSI unit is and what they do, mom feigned understanding, nodding and babbled on to the cop. I stayed inside that entire day. The only time I went outside was to toss the garbage and get the mail, that’s when I saw the yellow police tapes and I thought to myself, never did I imagine living next to a crime scene.