Chuck Norris in the 'burbs

I always wondered how I would react if I had to defend our house & family against intruders, and last night I got a chance to find out.

It was about 11PM, and the kids were both asleep in their beds.  Cindy was on the other side of the house, by our bedroom.    I was in the front room on the computer, not far from the front door, when there was loud rustling on the porch.   It was clearly someone fumbling with the door, which happened to be unlocked at the time.   As I got up, the door started to open, and my fight or flight instinct was in full effect.

This is a moment I have imagined in the past, a number of times in a variety of ways.  In your imagination, it's possible to always be Chuck Norris.  In these cases, the big issue is how to deliver the most kick-ass line, after disarming & beating up the last of 3 islamo-fascist-pirate-ninja intruders ("do you feel lucky, punk?").   Given that my real-life fight history is sparse and it never favored victory, even on those rare occasions, what reality would bring has always been a question mark.   Lets just say that I've never ruled out the possibility that I would just scream like a young girl and hope the ax murderer was too busy with Cindy to come after me during the escape.

So, here I am running towards the door as it is about to swing open.    This is fight or flight, and the Reptilian mind takes over....that part of the brain that makes all decisions made in the blink of an eye.   My immediate thought was to actively and aggressively keep whoever was trying to get into the house out, if only to buy enough time to call 911.  I was going to use shock and awe - slam the door back on them with some force.   If I was too late to get the door, I wanted to knock them back off the porch, to buy the time to close & bolt the door.

The door was half-way open by the time I got to it.   I grabbed the door and carried out the plan - forcing it closed, while yelling something that I can't remember.   It was supposed to be a guttural threat that Rambo would give, but probably sounded more like Napoleon Dynamite with a case of nerd rage.   The intruder responded, and at that moment I realized what I was facing.   It was my dear wife.   She went out the side door to get some stuff from her car and was returning in the front.    She even told me she was doing this, but there is some part of a man's brain (probably located right next to the Reptilian Complex) that grants us the ability to ignore women's voices.

So, I let her in the house and we laughed about it.   The good guys won this time.   No one got hurt, we got a good story to tell and I have a little more confidence that I won't scream like a young girl, should a situation ever call for self defense.