A number of years ago, before I had my own place, a roommate came into the living room where the rest of the house was having a few beers watching a movie on the telly and asked/said, "Ummm, Ann, if you're here, who is in your car?"
I jumped up, said something like call the police, grabbed a tennis racket from the hall closet, hit the outside light switch, and ran to the car.
A fellow had smashed the window and was halfway in the car wrestling with something in the car, his waist on the sill.
I readied myself for a clobbering chop to the small of the back, and couldn't do it. Then thought about nailing him to the back of the knees.
All the while, the guy is still going for the radio...seemed like forever had passed.
So I shouted, "Stop it!"
He did and hurt himself trying to extract himself from the car, or at least it looked like he did.
And then he came at me. But a vision of the racket made him turn and pause and flee in the opposite direction.
I chase.
The chase goes over my fence into my yard and through our tomato plants (the tomato cages tripped him up), over our rear fence which had barbed wire running along the top (to stop the neighborhood cats), into the neighbors yard (with the big, loud but old and mostly harmless dog...I've petted him mnay times through a hole in the fence), and then he starts to scale their fence to drop into their neighbors yard.
Funnying thing though in San Francisco with the yards being on hills...it can be a 6 foot fence on one side, and 15 foot on the other.
I wasn't going to follow, so stopped to pet the barking dog and just listened as this guy moaned.
Then the owners dog tells me to freeze and a flashlight blinds me.
He had a gun.
We waited till the cops came in about 5 minutes.
The dog owner didn't get in trouble, I didn't get in trouble, the bad guy got away, and the cops told me next time to say "Stop it, don't move!" And, "If they move abruptly, at all, smash them until there is no threat...which should be once." He stressed the once.
Anyway, it is a long story with no real point, I guess, except to say that I, and other, have been in similar situations. It is difficult to get the adrenalin down, and I for one am glad I had a tennis racket and not the target pistol I had at the time (just a poor, recent graduate).
And I am sure if I had a gun in my hand instead of a tennis racket, things would have been so much more worse for everyone.
Duncan
[This message has been edited by Duncan (edited November 07, 1999).]