Mind your Manor

So my friend Michelle recently moved from our highly "safe" and suburban area of just-south-of-Nashville to the well-known "hood". Not the technical hood, per se, but the scariest hood that people choose to move into. The Safe Ghetto, if you will. I pleaded with her to stay with me in the Safe Zone of Suburbia......but she wouldn't have it. She packed her dogs and her Friends DVDs and dove right into the colorful world of East Nashville. I told her she should beware of drive-by shootings and crack houses. I told her if she wanted to spend the night in a gun-free/drug-free zone, she could come and stay with me. That I live in the safe part of our fair urban sprawl. That I have nothing to fear.

Then.....

One night in December Ryan and I were taking Minnie for a walk and wondering aloud how many inflatables and light-up nativities The Neighbors had up in their yard. (Remember THIS?) As we were walking over to find out, we could see a red glow coming from in between the houses on our street. "Good Grief!" I said. "They've really done it up this year!"

Then....

We walked around the corner and saw that the red glow was coming from an ambulance. And a fire truck. And two police cars - one of which had a guilt ridden perpetrator in the back seat....HANDCUFFED. The blinds in the house where the cops were "investigating" were all terribly askew. "Domestic", I said. "Hmmm", Ryan said. Secretly I thought.....I'm supposed to be living in Safeland U.S.A. and people are getting arrested one street over? ONE STREET OVER?

Then....

Today Ryan called me as he was walking Minnie and informed me that the house a few doors down was surrounded with FIVE police cars and they were searching a white truck parked out front. Drugs? Maybe. Stolen? Could be. Unsettling? UH-HUH!

So.....

I think we need to officially change the name of our house from Illingworth Manor to:

Da Illingworth Crib.
Yo.