Chris Bell protects his family from a possible intruder – Live at The Moth

Sometimes our personal stories fall into the “life is full of unexpected surprises” category, and this is a perfect example. Chris Bell believes someone is breaking into his apartment, which poses a threat to his family, but in reality, it’s not the intruder he assumed it would be — it was the police.

Such stories remind us that what we think may be going on, may not always be correct. But at the same time, even stories that involve a mistake at one level, can hold deeper meaning below the surface and say something new about us.

What I appreciated about Chris Bell’s story, is the blend of humor and tension in his narrative. A bit of self-deprecating humor with the chunky peanut butter, the confusion about what was making the sound in his kitchen, the tense moments of confronting a potential intruder, followed by relief that it was only the police.

What about you? What stories do you have to tell that, on the one hand are a bit embarrassing, yet on the other hand, revealed something about your character?

Transcript

It’s 3 AM and I can’t sleep. Because I’m up wondering what I would do if my wife and two young kids were ever attacked by a grizzly bear.

I mean, would I have the courage to stand up to this beast and just do whatever I can do to protect them? Or would fear hijack my decisions and cause me to freeze or even worse, run away?

I don’t know. And that’s why this scenario has bothered me, haunted me, ever since the moment I first became a father.

Fortunately, there aren’t any grizzly bears in our neighborhood. But there have been several break-ins and robberies. Our landlord worked the night shift, so he installed this big fancy security system in his luxury apartment upstairs. But downstairs, in our barely basic two bedroom, I’m left to be my family’s security system.

So when my wife tells me she saw a mouse skurry across the kitchen floor, I see it as an opportunity to prove myself. The next day I immediately go to the store and pick up one jar of premium organic peanut butter. That’s just like me, a little chunky.

And after everyone goes to sleep, I put a little bit of that peanut butter on a mousetrap and strategically place it in our kitchen. Now, this night we’re experiencing waves of heavy rain and wind. It looks like someone’s throwing buckets of water against the window. And when the wind hits the house, you can hear the walls creak and groan. Around 11:00, I’m just watching the news and pop, the electricity just goes out.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I wake up to a bang. And I remember, ah, my mousetrap. So I get up, out of bed, wearing nothing but my boxers, flick the light switch and realize the power’s still out. Then I hear it again. Bang, bang.

So now I’m thinking, the mouse must have got its tail caught in the trap and it’s running around the kitchen, slapping it on the walls and cabinets. So now I’m rushing down the hall in my boxers, in the dark, trying to get to this mouse before it tears up our kitchen.

And right as I’m about to turn the corner, bang, bang, bang! And I stop. Because that doesn’t sound like a mouse. That sounds like a rat. And a big one.

So I go to the pantry and grab a broom and hold it like a spear from Wakanda. Cuz I know I got one shot to stab this thing before it tries to bite me.

So I carefully creep around the corner and leap into the kitchen. Only to see my trap right where I left it, untouched. Now I’m standing there wondering, what’s making that noise?

And from the kitchen door by my son’s bedroom, bang, bang, bang! Startled, I turn around to look through the window to see the figure of a dark shape pounding on the door. That’s when I realized, it wasn’t a mouse, it wasn’t a rat, that’s the sound of someone trying to break into our apartment.

And just then my son comes out of his bedroom in his Batman pajamas. And behind me, I hear the footsteps of my wife and daughter coming down the hall. So out of pure reflex, I turn the broom sideways and slam all my weight up against the door, trying to keep whoever wanted in out.

But now I’m close enough to see that there’re actually three figures pressing to get in. And they’re all bigger than I am. And when they see me, they erupt into shouting. And this causes my daughter to scream and my son to burst into tears. And at this point, my heart is beating like thunder because I’m I’m just gonna be real, I was scared.

This wasn’t some imaginary grizzly bear. This was real. And I knew if I couldn’t keep this door shut, they would get in and possibly hurt my family. And that thought terrified me. But it was the feeling of fear that told my body, you need to do something.

So I closed my eyes and pressed my nose up against the window so they could see my face clearly. And I did the one thing that I felt would turn these intruders away. I gripped my teeth and I growled.

But I growled like I was delivering a contract written in my own blood that said if they dared cross this threshold, I will show them exactly how ferocious a protective parent can be. And when I opened my eyes, the figures were now completely still. And the sound of their shouting was replaced by the soft sound of rain.

But now the figure up front revealed that he had his arms fully extended, revealing that there was only a thin pane of glass in between my chest and his gun. And when I saw this, I just felt like I was frozen.

And that’s when I heard, “Sir, drop the stick.” Followed by my wife, “Babe, I think it’s the police.”

Five minutes later, three very wet police officers are standing in the center of our kitchen. Turns out the wind from the storm shook the house so bad that it triggered one of the motion detectors from my landlord’s security system upstairs. This sent a silent alarm to the police station. So when they responded, started pounding on doors and looking through windows, they saw me standing in the kitchen, in my boxers, holding a broom as a weapon.

They thought they stumbled across a domestic situation.

Eventually, I got to explain my side of the story. And after I did, the officer who pulled his service weapon stepped up and said, “So so you mean to tell me I almost shot you because you was trying to catch a mouse? With a broom?”

My wife is not gonna believe this.

Fifteen years later, my young kids are now college students. And uh, believe it or not, we have never been attacked by a grizzly bear.

But if you were to ask me the same question, what would I do? I’ll still be real and say, I don’t know. But after the night I tried to protect my family from a mouse, I am a little bit more certain that I wouldn’t just run away. Thank you.

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