Was someone trying to kill me?

I swear I’m not being melodramatic. I had proof. A white van had been following me on multiple occasions and someone was unlocking my kitchen sliding glass door when I was out of my house.

My story of  intrigue began on a gorgeous fall day in the burbs where you can be lulled into thinking “bad things don’t happen here.” It was easy to believe that, especially on this afternoon, with the sun cascading through the autumn leaves as they gently twirled and fell on verdant lawns. It was almost as if the leaves were told to be on their best behavior.

I was taking this all in as I was walking my dogs, like I do everyday, while listening to podcasts from Dateline – the true crime show that follows murder cases and features the yummy vocal styling’s of Keith Morrison.

So far Dateline had taught me that you should never ever think that your life is picture perfect or have an overly manicured yard because it means you’re just asking to experience a violent death.

Listening to these podcasts was new for me. A friend suggested that I would like them and now one week in I was hooked. The downside was they were making me at the worst paranoid and at the best a tad overly aware of my surroundings.

For instance, on my walks I had noticed a neighbor had an abundance of leaves in her yard and this was a neighbor who has a history of being very anti leaf. If this were a Dateline podcast the woman would be dead and the murder weapon would turn out to a leaf blower that caused blunt force trauma to her brain.

It turns out my neighbor was just fine and was on a cruise. But then weird stuff started happening to me. Everyday the same white van seemed to be following my dogs and I. This had me so concerned I began to walk at different times and take different routes.

As if that’s not enough to freak me out my kitchen sliding door was mysteriously going from locked to unlocked. At first, I thought I had forgotten to lock it. But then one fateful day before leaving to walk my dogs I took a picture of the locked door as proof and yet when I got home the door was unlocked.

I was scared. Do I go inside the house to investigate? Do I call the police? Do I send my beloved beagle in to do recon? I did none of the above. I did what a murder victim in a Dateline episode would do and went off to investigate.

All seemed fine but I was wary and yet knew I had to solve this mystery. The first thing I did was re-lock the door and then patrolled the house with a marble rolling pin as my weapon of choice. But when I got back to the kitchen the sliding door was unlocked – again.

Oh my God did a crazed killer just escape or was he or she toying with me? I wasn’t going to wait and find out. I got my dogs and was running for the door while calling for our cat when I saw the feline sitting on the kitchen counter while leaning over to use his paw to slide the door locking mechanism up.

Yep, my cat was the potential assailant and door unlocker (made easy by the lock being very loose). As for the white van I had to concede that since it’s the vehicle of choice for every contractor and landscape crew in the country I was most likely not being followed.

I also had to concede that I needed to quit listening to Dateline podcasts because apparently the only thing that was being murdered was my sanity.