When is a piece of rope not just a piece of rope?

This is the last part of this tale.

 

Part 3

And on coming downstairs later that morning we solved half of the mysteries when we discovered, by opening the fridge, that the safety switch that it was on, had been thrown during the night. This also meant that certain circuits throughout the house were out but others weren’t. Now the phone call about perishables and the light that still worked but the phones that didn’t, made sense. Well almost. I still don’t know why he asked about perishables but hey I can live with not knowing the answer to that one. No conspiracy there anyway. 

So that left the man with the dog. I still couldn’t understand why he didn’t leave after he wasn’t answered the first time. Later that day however, quite by chance, I got my answer. Opening the front door to admit one of my son’s friends, a door we never use unless we have visitors, I noticed a rope tied to one of the veranda posts. Now I knew straight away it wasn’t our rope. It was very distinctive and nothing like anything we’ve ever owned. So why was it there and who had tied it? As I was holding it, contemplating the matter, my daughter came past and said “that must have been the man.”
I looked at her puzzled, “what man?”
“The man with the dog” she said “I saw the dog after he’d left. He must have thought he was our dog and tied him up.”
“Did you see the dog tied up out here?” I asked lamenting about why she hadn’t thought to tell us this piece of information earlier.
“No” she said “I didn’t look. But I saw the dog through the window and thought he was loose and had just wandered onto our veranda. I guess the real owner saw him and came and untied him.”
And as she moved away, unaware of the importance of what she had just divulged, I smiled. Now I could sleep peacefully, all the puzzles were explained and not a conspiracy in sight.

When is a piece of rope not just a piece of rope?

Part 2

Early the next morning we were woken by the phone ringing downstairs. Now we have phones upstairs but they didn’t ring and I couldn’t work out why. The problem was  that they are cordless and don’t work if the power is off where as the one down stairs is plugged directly into the phone line and still works without power. But in my sleep dazed state this didn’t register. If it had I may not have spent the early hours of that morning lying awake worrying about a conspiracy occurring. But just then, having being woken so abruptly, all I could think about was the curious incident of the man and the dog the day before. 

Anyway to get back to the phone call, it turns out it was the company that monitors our alarm, they had rung  to say that their equipment indicated the power was off and did we have any perishables. Well as I looked up at the light that I had just turned on, beaming down on me, to say I was confused is an understatement. I had no idea what the man was talking about, the power was clearly on and why on earth would he ask about perishables anyway. He monitored the alarm not the fridge. I could think of no logical explanation for any of it and added to the man with the dog I couldn’t help but think there was something weird going on. Maybe he wasn’t from the alarm company at all. Maybe there was some conspiracy and someone was out to get us. Only the worst case scenario, you’ll notice. But in my defence, I should say again here, I was half asleep.

When is a piece of rope not just a piece of rope?

When it helps explain a series of random events that when added together serve to make you paranoid. 

Firstly I need to explain that ever since my first child was old enough to be left at home for brief periods, like a run to the shops, I’ve  drummed it into them, not to answer the door or the phone, unless it’s myself or their father calling. They are to wait for the answering machine to kick in and then if it’s one of us they pick up. And for this one particular thing they are very good at following instructions. So when a strange man with a dog knocked at our door when I was out one day my second eldest daughter, who was home at the time, did what she was supposed to and ignored it. However this man proved very persistent. I’m not sure if he could hear the television on inside of if he happened to see movement through the front windows but he must have realised someone was home as he refused to take no for an answer and continued to knock. Well after his third or fourth attempt my daughter was starting to freak out. She rang both me and her father to ask what she should do.  We both told her the same thing, stay inside and don’t answer the door. Meanwhile I headed back home.  Thankfully though, when I was half way back, I received another call to say that the man had finally given up and left. There was no sign of him when I got back so we put it down to one of those things you can’t explain until the next unexplicable event.


More on this later.