Effective

It was 1:30 in the a.m., and I was watching TV ... when I heard my doorknob jiggle.

Someone surely just bumped into my door. Nothing to worry about.

Not so. It jiggled again. And then my door rattled.

Someone was trying to get into my rinky-dink apartment. And all I have is a pink thingy of pepper spray. It hurts, yeah, and I could probably do some damage with a good punch or a well-placed knee by now, but suddenly, that all felt somewhat inadequate in the face of Someone trying to get into my home.

They gave up as I creaked my way to the peephole, and by the time I peered out my door, the hallway door was creaking closed, and all I saw was a shoe disappearing around the corner and a Someone Else at the far end of the hallway, looking through the other hallway door (I still don't know what that was all about). Not feeling quite adventurous yet, I closed the door and went in search of my phone and pepper spray. The evening ended with the discovery that two of my neighbors' doors were standing wide open and with my confrontation with a drunk dick "looking" for his girlfriend's apartment. He was trying doors, hoping to eventually find the right one.

I'm not down with that, and neither are the cops, and neither were my neighbors when the cops woke them up to inform them that their doors were standing wide open at what was now 2 in the a.m. and to ask them if they were OK and whether anyone was in their apartments who shouldn't be.

I got to thinkin' ...

People have recordings of dogs barking which are triggered by doorbells or people trying doorknobs, but I think the sound of a pump-action shotgun being loaded when you try my door handle in the middle of the night would be so much more effective.