My sister had a key, sure. But she’d never wear boots in the house and I was certain that this was the tread of a grown man.

So there I was, in boxer shorts, standing next to my bed, trying to decide what the hell to do next.

Here’s the thing. Because of my tendency to get obsessed with things really easily, I always used to sleep with my phone in a different room. If I left it beside the bed, I might blink back into reality to realize that I’d been playing Bubble Shooter for the last four hours and now it was dawn. It was just generally healthier to charge it in the other room every night.

But at that particular moment, it meant that there was an intruder between me and my phone.

So, that’s how I found myself in my underwear with a baseball bat in my hand. I keep one in all my closets just like my dad taught me. I played Little League and was actually pretty good as a kid. I probably could have made the high school team but at the time my grades weren’t good enough. But right at that moment, I felt like I’d never touched a bat in my life. It was awkward and cold in my hands. I debated for a stupidly long amount of time whether or not I should take a second to put pants on. But then I imagined the intruder coming into my bedroom while I had my pants halfway up and me having to fight for my life while tripping around like an idiot.

Underwear was best, I figured. So, there I went, sneaking down the hallway toward the living room. Bat in hand.

I crept around the corner and saw the mess before I saw the man.

I’d apparently slept through a lot because all the books were off the shelves. I could see that the vase where I’d hidden a couple hundred bucks in emergency cash was tipped to one side and empty. My couch was disheveled, the blankets on the floor.

Carefully, quietly, I stepped around the corner into the living room. My eyes were focused on the window across the room, the desk where all of my computer equipment charged up at night. The laptop alone was worth a thousand bucks.

But then something moved right beside me and I realized the guy was not standing across the room about to steal my laptop. He was kneeling on the floor right next to me, pawing through my living-room closet.

There was this strange moment when he blinked up at me in confusion and I blinked down at him in surprise.

I could practically read his thoughts. Mostly naked man with baseball bat.

He must have been reading mine. Burglar on the floor.