I just thought I would share with you what we woke up to at 4 o’clock in the morning just two days ago.

We were asleep in the back bedroom, and were awakened by Buffy, who had begun to bark at something in the living room. After a few minutes of this, she ran back into the bedroom, and then darted back into the living room, continuing to raise hell.

Calling her back into the room, we quieted her down (which took some time) and tried to get back to sleep. A few minutes later, Lucian’s ears perked up and he ran into the living room, raising all sorts of noise as well.

Wondering what they were barking at, I got up, put my pajama bottoms on, and proceeded into the living room to do a little bit of investigation.

I found Lucian, staring at the door to the garage. Which was cracked half-way open, light pouring through. Hearing movement in the garage, I figured that one of the cats had somehow opened the door and gotten into the garage.

Slowly opening the door, I found myself staring not at an animal, but a tall black man, standing behind the van that was parked in the garage, who, once realizing that I was standing there, slowly stood up and looked at me.

It took my mind only a few moments to realize what I was actually looking at, and with a quick surprised inhale, closed and locked the door to the garage. Walking to my bedroom, I grabbed my Police-style Club, walked into the bedroom, and said the one phrase I never thought I would find myself saying.

“There’s somebody in the garage, and I don’t know who it is.”

Walking back to the garage door, trying to figure out whether to call the police or open the garage door via remote from inside of our house, the knob to the door rattled slightly. A few moments later, the garage door opened, and he was gone.

And while the situation did not send me into any sort of panic mode, it did make me realize that not only could this have ended in a completely different way, it made me realize that home security should be a much larger concern in our household than it currently is.

There’s a phrase that it could happen to anybody – it can. Whether you’re prepared for that or not, you need to take one long look at your house and make sure that there are precautions put in place so that you don’t wake up to what I did. And that you and your family are protected from what can turn into a very ugly situation very fast.

Nothing was missing, and nothing was out of place. But the end result is still the same: there was somebody in our house that shouldn’t have been there. There will not be a next time.