Thinkgeek Inflatable Turret Deters Real

Oh, weird. It's a public post so I thought non-Google+ users could read it.

Dan Morrill wrote:
OMG so scary! I won't lie, I'm still a little shaken up. But this is also kind of crazy-awesome so I have to share.

So last night we're sleeping, and we're woken up by the garage door opening. It's probably a 20-year-old opener, and while it works fine it's not the quietest thing in the world (and, apparently, not terribly secure. ) You can hear it very clearly downstairs. You hear it less well upstairs, but it was loud enough to wake me up, at least. Anyway I was like, wtf. Since I just woke up I wasn't thinking straight so it took me a moment to realize what the sound had been. Then I started looking around for the remote, assuming one of us had accidentally brought it upstairs and had rolled on it in the night, or one of the cats was playing with it or something.

It wasn't nearby though, and then after I woke up a bit more I realized that I knew I could account for both of the remotes to be downstairs -- one in the car, the other on a shelf. Suddenly I was wide, wide awake, since I'd remembered that I had left the door from the garage into the house unlocked. I immediately looked for my phone, but I'd forgotten it downstairs last night.

So now I'm freaking out. I got up and told +Aimee Morgan to stay quiet and stay there while I go check this out. I go out to the landing at the top of the stairs and kind of pause for a minute. I mean, I don't know WTF to do, and my phone is downstairs, and I don't even have a decent weapon. I could heave, like, stuff from the game room down the stairs at anybody coming up, but... Anyway I stand there listening for I don't even know how long.

Eventually I am realize WTF, I am standing right next to a light switch that will illuminate the stairs. But the instant I move to turn it on, two things happen at once. First, I hear a footstep I recognize as on the squeaky stair where the stairs up from the garage enter the first floor. Second, I hear sort of a very small gasp.

At this point I have to explain the layout of the house. The stairs I am at the top lead directly up from a little landing by the front door to the upstairs. Meanwhile the stairs up from the garage are directly underneath the stairs to the upstairs. So basically that whoever just came up is standing about one floor down, a few feet behind me, and a few feet to the left. But we can both see the same thing.

Namely, that god-damned inflatable Portal 2 turret I had in front of the front door. (The one I posted a photo of the other day.)

So some dude comes in, turns right, sees that thing and is like "wtf". They say burglars don't like unexpected things, and that was probably pretty unexpected, especially if you know what it is supposed to be.

Anyway I'm standing there and this sad little flashlight beam starts shining on the turret. I'm like, it won't take long for this dude to figure out it's inflatable. I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking, but I ran with it. In my best high-pitched turret voice, I ask, "Are you still there?" From where the dude was, the sound would have come from the direction of the turret, and he (probably?) didn't know I was there. I waited a heartbeat and then said "Deploying!" and that pretty much did it.

Next thing I hear is feet running down the garage stairs with no worry about quiet. I run to the room across the hall and look out the window and sure enough someone is running out the garage and up the driveway.

The rest of the story is boring. Downstairs, phone, police, disconnected the garage door opening until we get new codes, yada yada.

I am still kind of in shock about it so I haven't had a chance to laugh much yet, but I still know it to be freakin' hilarious. So I figured I'd share the story of how the inflatable turret scared off a burglar. And also that burglars play Portal, too.

Thank you, +ThinkGeek! Truly, it works as advertised.

Thinkgeek Inflatable Turret Deters Real Burglar