English 1010
Haley Stokes
01/24/2010
“Welcome Home”
Last December I bought a new home. The price was low for a five bedroom house. I felt fortunate! The owner was so eager to sell, that even he payed for a new roof and electrical work. Of course there would be a few things that needed to be fixed. The house had been vacant for over a year, or so I thought.
My new neighborhood is on a little avenue just off of State Street. At first we had reservations about moving into a home so close to such a busy road. There are cheap motels, tattoo parlors and head shops along State. It's a little seedy. But, once you pull into our road, it's nice and quiet. The houses are well kept with cute yards. The neighbors are friendly. Several houses lay vacant here, but they're not run down or shabby. Having lived downtown in bustling areas most of my adult life, it felt nice to have a peaceful place to soon call home.
Before closing on the house, I’d occasionally check on it like a stalker. I would walk the yard, leaving my tracks in the crusty snow. I'd peer in the windows, and imagine how I’d decorate. One thing I always noticed; the door on the back of the garage was ajar upon every visit. The basement door was often left unlocked too. I thought we just had an absent minded handyman coming and going.
After closing on a house, It's not officially your property until you have the title. My wife and I took this time to start painting rooms. The realtor said that would be okay, as long as we didn't move anything into the house.
We bought a used hot tub and stuffed it in the garage (Its not the house, right?). I put a padlock on the door just in case anyone got ideas about taking it. You know how hot tub thieves can be.
The morning before the house was officially ours, a strange thing happened. My brother in law, Jay, who is moving in with us, sent me a text. “Someone has broken into the house.”
I rushed to the new place to inspect the damage. The basement door at the back of the house had been kicked in. There was a dirty shoe print right where the deadbolt was caved in on the door. I was petrified, imagining the place would be wrecked. Jay tells me the house is clear, and everything is intact. Two steps in, we find the first clue. Its a cigarette butt, smoked down to the filter.
Jay is a smoker. I asked him if he knew the brand of the cigarette by the butt. When you’re broke you buy generic. If you have money, you smoke a premium brand. As a seasoned smoker, he knows the tobacco spectrum.
After close inspection, Jay says, “It is a Gold Coast cigarette. Very cheap."
This was a clue. We now had a detail for criminal profiling. A person who buys cheap cigarettes broke into our vacant house and smoked one upon entering. My paranoid mind starts eliminating suspects from the top. The cheap cigarette ruled out a mobster or a ninja.
Nothing was missing. The tools and ladder were still in place. The c.d. player and ipod dock were still right where we left them. This ruled out a burglar.
This person had no problem breaking and entering, yet didn't vandalize the interior. We left buckets of paint and brushes out in the open, and they went untouched. This ruled out a juvenile delinquent on a damage spree.
In the master bedroom, I found another clue. A second cigarette butt of the same brand lay on the floor. It had blood on it. Gross! I carefully put it in a ziplock baggie. At least we didn't find blood anywhere else. This room has a door leading back outside from the upstairs floor, which was unlocked. This must have been our intruder's exit point.
A person broke in and did nothing! I was angry, afraid, amused, and perplexed all at once. My inner detective was called back into action when our realtor advised us not to call the police. She told us we couldn't file a police report on a house that “technically” wasn't ours yet.
I searched the grounds for more clues to present to the police later. So far I only had a shoe print and two cigarette butts (one bloodied). At the garage door, however, I found a fourth clue. Dirty shoe prints below the padlock. Someone tried to get into the garage. They were unsuccessful, so they crossed the yard, went to the basement, and found an easier door to kick in. This house had been vacant for over a year. It is freezing outside. Was this break-in the work of a mad squatter? All of those open garage doors? The occasional unlocked house? I now had a meaningless conclusion that made me feel no more secure than a bashed in door.
In the meantime, we barricaded the vulnerable basement entry way. From inside, we jammed a few boards and a metal pole up against the back of the door. On the outside of the door we hung a smiley-faced snow man wreathe with several bells on it. I hauled our huge blue recycling can down the stairwell and put it in front of the door. Back on the inside, I installed not one, but two dollar store alarms that make an annoying high pitch squeal when set off. By the time I was done, I felt I'd created an impenetrable break-in obstacle course. I'd have liked to see somebody haul that monstrous can on wheels back up all of those steps, and try to kick that door in again without waking up the neighborhood!
Later that afternoon, our realtor called us with good news. The house was officially ours. Since the break-in occurred before we had the title, the seller agreed to replace the broken door. We could now call the police to investigate.
When the officer arrived, I gave him a tour of the crime scene. I knew he wouldn’t take fingerprints, but what about cigarette butts? Shoe prints? A DNA sample? No. I told him the conclusion I'd come to about the perpetrator and he agreed with my assessment. He told us our house flaunted clues of vacancy. It was winter, and the sidewalks were not shoveled. The porch lights weren't on, and there was a for sale sign stabbed in my front yard. On top of that, there are 3 other vacant houses and a motel between my new home and a busy state road. This house was ripe for a break-in under those conditions.
The officer told us all about our new neighborhood, and what to expect from vagrants and traveling hookers who populate the area every summer.
Before he left, he took a long look at our newly painted front room. He had the confident posture of a hardened cop and a dead serious look in his eyes. I thought he was going to give us other dire warnings.
“I like the paint colors you chose” he said. “The brown of the accent wall really brings the room together”
“There’s a lot you can do with your house.” he continued. “Have you thought about vinyl lettering? You could put a phrase on the wall. I do all the decorating at my house. My wife isn’t good with that sort of thing.”
The home deco talk went on for 10 minutes, and was weird enough to distract me from an otherwise harrowing day. The officer had all kinds of advice. Unfortunately, none had to do with feeling better about the fact that any given person may break into any given space, and do whatever they can get away with, given the opportunity.
The break-in was a stressful situation, but I was lucky enough to have been host to a gentleman intruder of sorts. I imagine a haggard, cold, shutout breaking into his old squatting grounds one last time. He had a couple of smokes and got some rest. Maybe he looked at our accent wall and wished us well by not urinating on our bedroom floor. He was thoughtful in his own way, I suppose. Though he never came back, he will be the faceless person I think of when I dare lay out my welcome mat.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Final Assignment; Observation
Edward Perry
English 1010
Haley Stokes
1/31/2010
1010 Observation Final Assignment; “A Shopping Trip”
I dread grocery shopping. I get lost If I don't come prepared with a short list to work from. I fall victim to stimulus overkill. It's hard for me to be in a market for more than 20 minutes without rushing the check-out, whether I have all the items I need or not. My wife, on the other hand, has great browsing focus. It is sadistic how much time she can spend sifting through the produce aisle. I do have an appreciation for this kind of patience. It is something I finally pick up and test at a bizarre grocery outlet.
My wife and I recently moved into a new house. We needed to go shopping to stock up our empty kitchen. Because of this, I knew I was in for the long haul. We decide to go down the street to the neighborhood Reams store. The winter pollution cast it's haze on our drive. I feel uneasy when we pull into the parking lot, but not about shopping this time. This store is dingy and glum.
Greeting us at the front of the parking lot is a tall, green, cross shaped sign. A black digital screen rests like a dirty crown atop this monolith with beady, red, words flashing daily specials. Shambling atop the sign is a large consortium of dour pigeons. A feculent white crust stains their perch. On the side of the sign is the faded silhouette of a kilted Scotsman. It is evident that no one has cared to repaint this mascot within the last few decades. By the looks of this place, I doubt there's anyone in charge of upkeep here at all.
Between parking stalls, there are dirty black snow drifts with aluminum cans protruding like fossilized bones. Litter is strewn across the blacktop lot. Behind the cinder block wall to the south, dead winter trees pose with old plastic shopping bags hanging from their veinous branches. They move like sick lungs in the gray smog.
I dare myself forward as we approach the store. Wood framed, hand painted ads stretch along the yellowed brick exterior. They are protected by chicken wire. What are they being protected from? Certainly not the elements! On a country store the mesh covering might be a quaint aesthetic touch. Here, it looks like ghetto resignation.
We pass through the front doors. The produce aisle is to the immediate right, and is separate from the rest of the store. You have to pass through it to get to the main shopping area. This makes me feel like I'm being corralled in with all of the other shoppers.
To stay positive, I try my best to help my wife bag vegetables and fruit so we can move on as fast as possible. I learn how to choose a good pineapple. They should be golden yellow, and less firm towards the base. The leaves atop are not a good indicator of freshness, since pineapples don't grow fresh anywhere near here at this time of year. Maybe my attention span can live through what is likely to be an hour long ordeal if I observe, and learn more about the product selection. For that, I'll need to be able to withstand the droves of people crowding the narrow aisles.
The store is lost in another time, with its acoustic ceiling tiles and buzzing fluorescent lights. No one in this store seems happy at all. I smile at people as I pass their aisle obstructing carts, only to get crusty looks and mean glares in return. They are making up for all the smiles and stylishness of organic food stores and metro-marts that I'm accustom to. These grouchy shoppers are doing their part to balance the grocery universe. They must hate shopping as much as I do.
The more I maintain my focus, the more I see the strange array of food items from which to choose. I start with pickled pigs' feet. I see these, and know they are not uncommon. But, I observe them up close. They float gracefully in shatter-proof jars with clean white lids. The soft pink skin segments wrap around bone and hooves. They levitate in red spices. Its like a satanic snow globe made by Charles Manson. I pull one of these jars from the shelf and show it to my wife. She turns away and gets dizzy for a moment.
“That made me feel nauseous!”, she says in disgust. I don't doubt it. She's a vegan, and looks sea sick for a moment. I feel bad. Reams is now an unsteady ship.
“Sorry.” I say. “I just wanted you to see this. Its so strange.” I wasn't about to show her the seasoned pork rinds in brine now. They looked like carved strips of bleached rubber, but she'll never see them, as she goes off to find cake mix. I continue looking for entertaining food packaging.
Next I find cans that claim in bold print to contain a "whole chicken", in broth, without giblets. A whole chicken! The cans seems smallish. They must be a small chickens. Still, I doubt the claim. How can a chicken be whole without its giblets!
Now I'm so keen on observing this place and its contents, that I want to take notes. I find my wife, who is kind enough to lend me her address book and pen.
Down the aisle I find 'California Girl Sardines', which feature a bikini clad female on a surf board left of the food title. To the right is a fish which is holding an enormous tomato slice curled tightly in its tail. Students jokingly made logos like this in my old high school commercial art class. At least I thought they were joking.
I then come across “Danish Wedding Cookies” by Keebler. These are not odd, but their title clues me in to why I've only seen these hard, white, powdered cookies at weddings. Their primary purpose must be for decoration. They are made to compliment wedding dresses and white tablecloths. The box is pink with an image of the cookies on front, but the Keebler elf is nowhere to be found on the package. Does he not endorse these? He's on all of the other Keebler cookie items!
On aisle 14 there is a sign that advertises “refridgerated dough”. Yeah, that's a typo on an aisle sign. That could've been anybody's mistake. Its a character trait of the store. I now feel fine being here, taking my notes. Living in the bad side of town, I'll have to get used to it. The only problem now, is that other people are watching me take my notes, especially near the meat counter. As I catalog strange animal body parts at the deli, people start to rubber neck. Some people are giving me disturbed looks. I was not trying to take sneaky notes, but I wasn't flaunting a quill pen either. My observations are now not natural in the flow of groceryland.
When you observe, you change what you are observing.
I try to hurry my scribblings as green smocked employees and leery shoppers eye me. It's time to go. My wife has been eager to leave for a while now. I got all of the information I didn't know I was coming for. I even came up with scenarios for certain observations. For example, I figured that a person, if they wanted to, could make a very grotesque monster from the hermetically sealed variety of meats. Hey, all the parts are there! From the cookie aisle, who knows? I didn't check into it enough.
My wife and I met outside of the store. It's ironic that she was not amused by how much time I kept us there. The gray sky was dimming fast. Several feral cats played in the trees outside. Now the trees seemed endearing. The old hung shopping bags still breathed in and out as we drove away. Maybe next time I come here, I'll hang up one of my own.
English 1010
Haley Stokes
1/31/2010
1010 Observation Final Assignment; “A Shopping Trip”
I dread grocery shopping. I get lost If I don't come prepared with a short list to work from. I fall victim to stimulus overkill. It's hard for me to be in a market for more than 20 minutes without rushing the check-out, whether I have all the items I need or not. My wife, on the other hand, has great browsing focus. It is sadistic how much time she can spend sifting through the produce aisle. I do have an appreciation for this kind of patience. It is something I finally pick up and test at a bizarre grocery outlet.
My wife and I recently moved into a new house. We needed to go shopping to stock up our empty kitchen. Because of this, I knew I was in for the long haul. We decide to go down the street to the neighborhood Reams store. The winter pollution cast it's haze on our drive. I feel uneasy when we pull into the parking lot, but not about shopping this time. This store is dingy and glum.
Greeting us at the front of the parking lot is a tall, green, cross shaped sign. A black digital screen rests like a dirty crown atop this monolith with beady, red, words flashing daily specials. Shambling atop the sign is a large consortium of dour pigeons. A feculent white crust stains their perch. On the side of the sign is the faded silhouette of a kilted Scotsman. It is evident that no one has cared to repaint this mascot within the last few decades. By the looks of this place, I doubt there's anyone in charge of upkeep here at all.
Between parking stalls, there are dirty black snow drifts with aluminum cans protruding like fossilized bones. Litter is strewn across the blacktop lot. Behind the cinder block wall to the south, dead winter trees pose with old plastic shopping bags hanging from their veinous branches. They move like sick lungs in the gray smog.
I dare myself forward as we approach the store. Wood framed, hand painted ads stretch along the yellowed brick exterior. They are protected by chicken wire. What are they being protected from? Certainly not the elements! On a country store the mesh covering might be a quaint aesthetic touch. Here, it looks like ghetto resignation.
We pass through the front doors. The produce aisle is to the immediate right, and is separate from the rest of the store. You have to pass through it to get to the main shopping area. This makes me feel like I'm being corralled in with all of the other shoppers.
To stay positive, I try my best to help my wife bag vegetables and fruit so we can move on as fast as possible. I learn how to choose a good pineapple. They should be golden yellow, and less firm towards the base. The leaves atop are not a good indicator of freshness, since pineapples don't grow fresh anywhere near here at this time of year. Maybe my attention span can live through what is likely to be an hour long ordeal if I observe, and learn more about the product selection. For that, I'll need to be able to withstand the droves of people crowding the narrow aisles.
The store is lost in another time, with its acoustic ceiling tiles and buzzing fluorescent lights. No one in this store seems happy at all. I smile at people as I pass their aisle obstructing carts, only to get crusty looks and mean glares in return. They are making up for all the smiles and stylishness of organic food stores and metro-marts that I'm accustom to. These grouchy shoppers are doing their part to balance the grocery universe. They must hate shopping as much as I do.
The more I maintain my focus, the more I see the strange array of food items from which to choose. I start with pickled pigs' feet. I see these, and know they are not uncommon. But, I observe them up close. They float gracefully in shatter-proof jars with clean white lids. The soft pink skin segments wrap around bone and hooves. They levitate in red spices. Its like a satanic snow globe made by Charles Manson. I pull one of these jars from the shelf and show it to my wife. She turns away and gets dizzy for a moment.
“That made me feel nauseous!”, she says in disgust. I don't doubt it. She's a vegan, and looks sea sick for a moment. I feel bad. Reams is now an unsteady ship.
“Sorry.” I say. “I just wanted you to see this. Its so strange.” I wasn't about to show her the seasoned pork rinds in brine now. They looked like carved strips of bleached rubber, but she'll never see them, as she goes off to find cake mix. I continue looking for entertaining food packaging.
Next I find cans that claim in bold print to contain a "whole chicken", in broth, without giblets. A whole chicken! The cans seems smallish. They must be a small chickens. Still, I doubt the claim. How can a chicken be whole without its giblets!
Now I'm so keen on observing this place and its contents, that I want to take notes. I find my wife, who is kind enough to lend me her address book and pen.
Down the aisle I find 'California Girl Sardines', which feature a bikini clad female on a surf board left of the food title. To the right is a fish which is holding an enormous tomato slice curled tightly in its tail. Students jokingly made logos like this in my old high school commercial art class. At least I thought they were joking.
I then come across “Danish Wedding Cookies” by Keebler. These are not odd, but their title clues me in to why I've only seen these hard, white, powdered cookies at weddings. Their primary purpose must be for decoration. They are made to compliment wedding dresses and white tablecloths. The box is pink with an image of the cookies on front, but the Keebler elf is nowhere to be found on the package. Does he not endorse these? He's on all of the other Keebler cookie items!
On aisle 14 there is a sign that advertises “refridgerated dough”. Yeah, that's a typo on an aisle sign. That could've been anybody's mistake. Its a character trait of the store. I now feel fine being here, taking my notes. Living in the bad side of town, I'll have to get used to it. The only problem now, is that other people are watching me take my notes, especially near the meat counter. As I catalog strange animal body parts at the deli, people start to rubber neck. Some people are giving me disturbed looks. I was not trying to take sneaky notes, but I wasn't flaunting a quill pen either. My observations are now not natural in the flow of groceryland.
When you observe, you change what you are observing.
I try to hurry my scribblings as green smocked employees and leery shoppers eye me. It's time to go. My wife has been eager to leave for a while now. I got all of the information I didn't know I was coming for. I even came up with scenarios for certain observations. For example, I figured that a person, if they wanted to, could make a very grotesque monster from the hermetically sealed variety of meats. Hey, all the parts are there! From the cookie aisle, who knows? I didn't check into it enough.
My wife and I met outside of the store. It's ironic that she was not amused by how much time I kept us there. The gray sky was dimming fast. Several feral cats played in the trees outside. Now the trees seemed endearing. The old hung shopping bags still breathed in and out as we drove away. Maybe next time I come here, I'll hang up one of my own.
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