Emergency! Emergency!

"Huny? Come here for a minute." I find Chris in the back hall, half in and half out the door, wearing a bemused expression. Suddenly, I hear a siren twirling in the background.

"Emergency! Emergency! You have violated an area ..... Protected by ..... A security system!" The siren twirls again. "Emergency! Emergency! You have violated an area ..."

We stand in door, listening to the mechanical voice and the siren take turns violating the quiet evening. The unnatural pauses in the mechanical voice are comical. "Deer?" Chris asks, "or should we call someone?"

"Emergency! Emergency! You have violated an area ..... Protected by ..... A security system!"

We wait, but nothing comes bounding through the woods. No deer. No burgler. The alarm sallies forth. "If this were Brooklyn, I'd be tempted to get a sharpie and write a nasty note on that guy's front door," I say. I've been known to pen such missives on the windows of people inconsiderate enough to park their 5-stage alarm cars somewhere well out of their own earshot. Eventually, we decide there's no actual danger and go back inside. Maybe the people in that house are too new to the neighborhood to know that the major threat around here is friendly deer? We're hoping it won't take them too long to figure it out.