The one who got away must have been in search of...

Two teenaged girls sleeping, and someone, came into our bedroom, and rummaged around enough that they managed to find my flashlight, and...

This one that got away was someone who came into our home one night, while everyone was sleeping.



One morning, when I woke up, it wasn't quite light enough out to see clearly inside, and when I returned to my bedroom after going to the bathroom, I noticed my flashlight, on the wrong side of my dresser, the end close to the closet, alongside the mirror. The light was on, and shining on the ceiling.



I always kept the flashlight just behind the mirror, on the opposite side of the dresser, light end down, and of course with the light turned off. This was long before the days of rechargeable batteries, except of course car batteries. Another thing to consider here is the fact that the flashlight could not possibly have been on for too long, or the batteries would have already drained. (it was also long before days of alkaline batteries).



I woke my sister and asked if she may have used the light for anything and left it on the dresser, turned on and facing up. She denied even having gotten up during the night.



I then went to my parents and asked them if they had any knowledge about the flashlight being where it was, and being turned on. Really neither of them would have had any reason to do so. It was finally decided someone may have possibly been in our home while we all slept, and we decided to have a look around outside to see if there might be footprints where they didn't belong.



Well, when we went outside, we checked to see if the dogs seemed agitated, and they didn't. They were their usual happy selves and waiting for breakfast.



I then started looking on the side nearest the driveway, and voila, I saw footprints alongside the side of the house, and near the bathroom window.



I called my father, and we checked the rest of the area together. We discovered that there were a few things in different places than they had been left, such as a car hood, that my father had leaned against the house, while he worked on one of our vehicles. (These were the days that cars were made out of sheet metal, not aluminum or plastic).



There was a large mark on the previously clean and unscathed hood. It looked as if someone had possible skidded their shoe along the hood, while climbing into the window. We could also see that the hood had obviously been moved, and it appeared that it had been moved to the area of the bathroom window. There, it looked like whoever it was, used the car hood to manage access to the bathroom window to enter the house.



That bathroom window was not very large, so whoever had come inside was not a heavy person, or they would have done more damage to the car hood, and probably would have made more noise too. They probably would not even have fit through the window, either.



Next, we decided to really check out things inside, to see if anything was missing. Strangely enough, we could find nothing missing at all.



Who knows? There was no use in calling the police, as whoever it was, was long gone, or hiding in the acres of vegetables that were covered at least a mile in every direction. These were crops grown and sold for commercial use to grocery stores, and companies who prepared frozen foods.



The closest we could figure, it may have been one of the farm workers, that the dogs recognized. Or, they may also have just been sleeping too sound to be aroused by someone who probably already knew we had several dogs in the rear yard, thereby they most likely were being as quiet as possible.



We all were thankful that at least they didn't bother any of us girls, or anything in the house, except for the flashlight, and rustling around in our closet, like they were looking for something in particular, like maybe a gun.