Instead of a New Turtleneck, I Bought Myself This for Christmas

Ok, the title is a bit misleading. But I thought I might try a bit of 'click bait' to make a good point here.

We've had a bit of a rough stretch at our house here in Sioux Falls. Late summer, my car was parked outside, because one of our sons was in the process of moving and was vandalized on the driveway right in front of our house. I was pissed. By the time I was done fixing the car [nearly $6000 in damage] I was ready to move on. Then we had our house broke into. The garage anyway.

Now this one is my fault. It was the night of Halloween. I forgot to lock the door to the garage. So some Mr. or Miss Wonderful thought it best to let themselves in and take my wives purse out of her vehicle. [again my fault because I didn't lock the door as I usually do before heading to bed.] 

After changing bank accounts, and credit card [royal pain in the butt]  I decided I'd had enough. I bought a bear trap and  strategically placed my sawed off shotgun in the closet by the garage door. Yeah you could say I'm getting angry.  Some little prick or was seriously tooling with me now.

I did change the bank account, the shotgun line might be a bit of a stretch and I still think the bear trap is a good idea.  In the end I decided to purchase a key punch entry for the side garage door. It took me about 20 minutes to install and about 10 hours to program. [I'm not real good at that sort of stuff] Thanks to Al up the street for his help, but I/we finally got it!

Here's where I'm going with this. If you've ever had your stuff '(*&^0'd with, you know. You kind of feel violated. This is an indirect PSA to remind you to lock your house regardless of where you currently live. I grew up in the middle of the state and we rarely locked the house. Keys were left in vehicles. Many times we figured, if they wanted the car, hell, just take it. But things have changed, times have changed and if knuckle heads are still gonna mess with peoples stuff for a couple of dollars we're gonna have to do a better job locking things up.

The key pad is installed. And it works. I like how it locks the door behind us seconds after we come in. How about you? Have you had your stuff messed with lately? If so, what have you done to slow them down. Let me know in the comments below, or you can email me at jdcollins@kikn.com. And thanks for sharing this with your friends and neighbors and remind them to lock up. Every night.

By the way, I din't want, and do not intend to buy myself a turtleneck for Christmas.