By Jim Hagarty
I live in the quietest, most peaceful neighbourhood around. That is why it is always a bit of a shock when I am standing at my kitchen window eating peanut butter from a jar at 3 a.m. and I hear gunshots in my backyard.
Now you might question how I know these were gunshots I heard this morning and I might wonder that too except there was that time a neighbour fired off his gun and a SWAT team crawled through my backyard to get to his place and question him about his loudly stated intention to do in himself and his family. The operation was successful and everyone survived but maybe not surprisingly, a divorce followed up that incident.
But I heard that gun and that is why I know that the sounds I heard this morning also came from somebody’s gun and not a backfiring muffler. At first I wondered if someone was perturbed at the sight of a man at his kitchen window at 3 a.m. eating peanut butter but that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense so I went to bed entertaining various possible theories as to why someone was shooting off a gun in my backyard at 3 a.m. today.
When I heard the “bang”, for some reason, I waited, peanut butter at the ready, for a second one. And a few minutes later, another one went off.
Sometimes, post peanut butter blitz, if I can’t sleep, I will go out for a walk in my backyard at all hours of the night. I don’t turn on any lights and it’s dark as I imagine a mineshaft to be at that hour. A bit creepy it is, in fact, but after 30 years, I know most of the nooks and crannies pretty well. Except that some of those crannies (whatever a cranny might be) are occupied by night critters such as raccoons, skunks and groundhogs so middle-of-the-night surprises are not out of the question.
This morning, as you might if someone was shooting in your backyard at 3 a.m., I wisely decided to just go back to bed. I didn’t phone 911 as I don’t want to be one of those eccentrics who calls emergency numbers to complain that there is not enough pepperoni on the pizza that was just delivered.
So, after I finish writing this, in broad daylight, I will go out and do an inspection of my backyard. If I am not back in a half hour, please phone police and mention that I like double cheese on my pizza.
Otherwise, I will wait till my neighbour gets back from his morning coffee. He’ll have the scoop. If he also is holding a gun, this could be my last post.
