“Hark, what’s the noise out by the porch door?”

Last night at approximately 1:50am I was woken up by our 120 pound dog Ruxin barking his head off. Now occasionally he barks if someone knocks at the door, but I have literally never heard him bark like this before. I run out and he is standing at the top of the stairs like a confident beast, barking and growling in the direction of the door, ready to protect the household. Anyone who has ever met Ruxin will laugh at this, as he spends 90% of his time horizontal on the floor and only gets up to politely greet people coming in or to come bum food off you when you’re eating.

As I looked down over the stairs I could kind of see a figure through the window and when I turned the light on it was clear that someone had turned and walked back down the porch steps. There hadn’t been a knock at the door and what I thought might have been the wind blowing something over, quickly turned to an almost paralyzing fear…. Someone was trying to get into the house.

I had just woken up and was obviously a little out of it, but the image of a black coat descending the stairs was ringing in my mind and with a 6 month old baby sleeping in the house, the stakes were significantly higher than any other time I have experienced a strange noise or knock on the door. Pardon my French but I was fucking terrified. Was this person going to go try and break in? Were they potentially going around back where the patio door would be easily breakable? Do I grab a knife? My mind was running like crazy and the feeling in my stomach combined with the rise in my heart rate was unlike any I had ever felt. I was ready for a physical altercation but in all honesty, I had never been so scared in my life.

I gathered my thoughts and realized “We have a security system and a door camera!” If this were a mystery novel, we are approaching the first real piece of evidence in this heinous crime! This wannabe intruder will be identified and persecuted to the full extent of the law! “Nadaira!!! Can you check the camera!?!? I think someone was just on the step!”

“Let’s Get Ready To RUMBLEEEEEE”

As Nadaira logged into the security system I was getting ready to call 911. She gets in and says “Oh my God, there was someone there!” Now we have his face. Still jacked up from everything going on, I recreate the scene in Home Alone in my head where Kevin goes outside and yells “I’m not afraid anymore! You hear that!? I’m not afraid anymore!” Upon a quick look, this is a young guy and he is wearing black, and I am ready to tie paint cans to the ceiling and booby trap the shit out of the house in case this joker comes back. He’s going to get a lesson in how physically harmful Kevin McCallister’s tricks are in real life. I realize after examining him a little further that he seems quite small. Perfect! I don’t need any tricks. I’ll just whoop his ass Labrador style and hand him over to the police. Dad level “Badass” achieved! I’ll be telling Max about this for rest of his life and he will be so proud of the time his dad basically took on the Grinch! You won’t be getting the last can of Who Hash in this house you criminal! I’m about to become Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Yippie-Ki-Yay, Mother Fucker.

“Let he Without Sin, Cast the First Stone”

After my one minute fantasy of vigilante justice, we play the video a few more times. What was a terrifying scenario quickly evolved into a bit of poetic justice. This poor lad wasn’t dressed in black like a cat burglar. He was wearing downtown clothes with an extremely dapper black pea coat that I am actually jealous of (I wish I could ask him where he bought it), and had his hair gelled up gorgeously. Again, I was jealous of him having hair, let alone how magnificent it was… What we had thought was a Christmas intruder coming to terrorize our home, was actually a young man so drunk that he was clearly at the wrong house. He was probably on his way to a Tinder hook up, dude had style.

Now I mention this evolved into a little poetic justice. The reason I say this, is because this is just karma coming to bite ol’ Mcgrew in the behind. I have literally been this drunken dumb-dumb and gone to the wrong house when absolutely obliterated…. TWICE!!!!

In university we had a house party one of the last nights of exams in the house I was living in. We got polluted at the house and then went out to a few bars. The last place we went was the university campus bar and I had lived about a 5 minute walk from it the year before. I was extremely intoxicated and my muscle memory from having been to this bar so many times while living in my old house must have just walked me there. Luckily the people that lived there weren’t home and after an unknown amount of time I realized where I was and went to my actual home. The other time I banged on our neighbors door for 20 minutes because my key wouldn’t work. Luckily they knew me and other than being briefly afraid of the knocks on the door, they were able to politely inform me I lived one house up…

At this point I had to abandon my mixture of Home Alone and Die Hard Justice and have a little giggle. We had already called the police and they came quite quickly. I actually knew the officer so we had a bit of a laugh. At that point I was more concerned about the poor little drunk than I was angry. I showed the officer the video and it seemed like a cab had dropped him off and may have even watched him come in. They were going to follow up with the cab companies and see if someone may have dropped him off and make sure everything was okay. I cracked the joke to the officer that “I have been this guy before, so hopefully he’s alright.” His response was “Oh I have no doubt in my mind you’ve done that before McGrew.”

“You Must Be the Change You Wish to See in This World”

After all was said and done this situation was a little funny. From my fat ass standing in intense fear in nothing but boxers, to laughing with a police officer about how drunk I used to get, there was a whirlwind of emotions in this 30-45 minute event. I’ve never quite felt that level of fear and responsibility at the same time. I’m glad my dad reflexes kicked in, but there is a part of this situation that made me feel intensely vulnerable. I imagine there will be many scenarios like this throughout life as a parent and I hope little misunderstandings like this can help prepare my nerves. If this had actually been an intruder I likely wouldn’t be writing a silly blog post today, we’d be dealing with a much different aftermath. We are very lucky to have a camera as only having the image of someone running down the stairs would have made this a far scarier situation.

I also can’t help but hope the drunk guy got home okay. If I was still drinking I don’t know that I’d have the capacity to forgive this person so quickly. It’s a little ironic that the person I was while drinking would have likely chased down a drunk guy mistakenly trying to come in our house. I’m thankful for this change in me. While prepared to do what needed to be done, I didn’t beat the hell out of someone to make myself feel like a hero. I evaluated the situation and we were able to laugh about it after. We actually felt bad for the guy and that is exactly the person I want to be. So while this was an unfortunate misunderstanding, the silver lining was a showcase of personal growth.

I’d be doing a disservice if I didn’t give our dog Ruxin a special shout out. I’ve never seen him react like he did last night and I’m equal parts surprised and proud. As I mentioned, Ruxin is 120 pounds but has the easiest going demeanor possible. He probably would of gave the guy a trademark dog hug if he made it into the house, but for the situation that was ongoing, he was the protector of the house. He gave his meanest bark and growled for only the second time I’ve ever heard. The whole time he leaned directly against my legs as if to say “We got this shit.” The cat, however, was nowhere to be found…. That little pussy.