Peace Of Mind? Depends On Perspective

when i bought my first house in midtown, i inherited a security system. which in that part of town was crucial. the guy i bought the house from had installed a security system. the original door to the house had been kicked in, so robbie replaced it with a steel door, and when i moved in, i added a heavy-duty stormdoor. i never had any problems thank goodness, although my next-door neighbors on one side got broken into twice, and the white-trash neighbors on the other side got robbed over thanksgiving one year.

i kept the system and when we moved into our current house, we transferred the service. and thankfully our neighborhood is much safer, although you always have to be on the lookout for opportunists. for example, the adorable one always keeps the garage door closed when he's mowing in the backyard. i never think about these things as growing up we always had our garage doors open in nice weather. but times are different.

anyway, we've opted to cancel our service. we only use it at night as we have not figured out in the three years that we've lived here how to set it and leave the house without it going off. i may have mentioned we're lazy. anyway, we keep seeing these commercials for the competition's system and i have to laugh. because of what people buy into. yes, it does give you peace of mind, but alarms of any kind are at best a deterrent. they can't keep people from breaking into your house or your car if they really want in. at best, it just makes a hell of a lot of noise, at least my old system did--lordy, it could wake up the whole city.

so for the first time in eight years i will be sleeping without the sense that the house is protected. but like everything else in life, it's all depends on your perspective. something tells me i'll sleep just fine. much to the chagrin of the alarm and marketers everywhere.