Escalation

"Stop me!? He [the Emperor] invited me. By building his wall, he challenged my strength." -- Shan Yu, leader of the Hun army, from the movie "Mulan".

Certainly my wife and I were not trying to invite, much more challenge, anyone's strength. But this is how I felt when we discovered the deep scratch marks on the lock of our front door last night.

The intention to break-in was undeniable. Someone tried to pry away the deadbolt, and succeeded in forcing a gap between the lock and the door, wide enough to slip in a screwdriver. Luckily the lock assembly didn't break apart.

This has been the second break-in attempt since we moved in the newly-renovated apartment barely a month ago.

Before the renovation, there were only wooden doors with simple doorknobs and aluminum screens. Given the right motivation, the old apartment would have been a very easy target.

But as far as I can remember, the old apartment never had any break-in attempt.

The apartment now has steel doors, with just enough locks to allow us a certain degree of peace of mind.

But the law of escalation seem to have taken its course. The steel doors have brought in more frequent and more brazen break-in attempts.

On two occasions in the past month, we found muddy footprints on the balconies and deep scratches on the locks. The attempt yesterday would have been around 5:30 in the afternoon up to 9:00 in the evening -- while we were away to hear mass and have dinner.

These incidents somehow made me despise our neighbors more (not all of them, though) -- we've tolerated their rowdy kids banging and climbing our gates and leaving all sorts of rubbish at our doorsteps (all the while their parents watch from the other side of the street, doing nothing, and acting dumb when we tell them what their children are doing).

We've let them off easily when we caught them stealing electricity, or illegally hooking up on someone else's cable television (they won't admit it, of course, but it's clear where the cables lead to). We try to smile at them and greet them at every chance we get. We allow them to park their motobikes and pedicabs on our driveway at night.

All in the name of "pakikisama".

And yet the banging at our gates continue, the rubbish are still strewn at our doorsteps, and to think of their blank faces watching from across the street while someone is trying to break-in our house is driving me murderous.

Every break-in attempt is eating away at our emotional reserves, leaving Joan and I drained and depressed. Never had our sense of security been so violated.

But yes, there is always a choice. There's no need for us to stay in that place. I guess I was just hoping that people could still change for the better.

I hoped too much.

I forgot that some people have that penchant for breaking the rules and pushing our sensibilities to the limit. And some of these people live just across the street.

Sigh. While the plan to move is in the works, nothing else for us to do but to beef up our defenses and step up the gameplan.

It's the law of escalation.

Bring it on!

I've been dying to try those neat anti-burglar tricks in the movie, Home Alone.

Just kidding. ^^