A Test of Courage

Last night I was telling a group of neighbors about the time my personal courage was really tested. We were living in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts at the time. One Sunday night, I was folding clothes and watching TV in the living room and my husband was watching TV in a room upstairs. All of a sudden, our front door opened and a strange man stumbles into the room. I start shrieking "Who are you? What do you want?" and he's muttering incoherently. There was a decorative sword on the wall and I grabbed it down and brandished it threateningly between me and the stranger. I called my husband (only time in his life he's heard me on the first call) and he comes running downstairs. My husband tells me to call the police and I tell him I don't know how. In the meantime, he's pushing the intruder out the door. One of us finally called the police.

Later that evening, the police came back to tell us the man who burst in had once lived in Manchester. He had gone to a reunion and inbibed a bit too much and then decided to visit an old friend who had once lived in the house where we were. They stated that they thought he was more frightened by our confrontation than we were.

They obviously didn't know that my personal bravery had been tested and I failed miserably.