Regret to inform

We all get it: that thought that if we had only done A we could have prevented B from happening. And every so often, regardless of our mind's attempts to rationalize the situation, the bugger refuses to let go. It sits in the back of our head and gnaws away until we start to wish we had a time machine. Truth be told, though, I wouldn't know the first thing about getting plutonium from Libyan terrorists (let alone how to make a fake bomb out of old pinball machine parts).

An example of this: The Professor and I were driving home from the movies last night and I decided to swing past the old apartment to see if I could spy on what the new tenants had done with the place (yes, this is pretty lame, I admit). We did a quick drive-by, and, as luck would have it, no one appeared to be home. 

But there was an opened window. Facing the main road. On the porch. With easy access. It basically was screaming, "Come, questionable neighbors, and rob me blind."

No, we didn't go inside.

We went home. And that's when I began to feel the gnaw.

I had met the new tenants, a pair of guys, when they first were looking at the apartment. Unlike other people who came by those last weeks, I didn't bother to drop a hint as to why we had chosen, after less than a year (we had signed a 10-month lease when we first moved down), to pack up and go. They were guys, I thought at the time. Guys can handle themselves.

But the gnaw was there. I started to think of horrible things happening to these new people. I started to think that if someone was brazen enough to steal our car radio when the car was parked in the garage, they'd be more than happy to enter an apartment through a porch-level window. I began to regret biting my tongue when those guys came to look at the apartment.

Then ration took over. Who's dumb enough to leave a porch-level window open, in the middle of the night, when nobody's home? I thought. It was enough. I went to sleep.

This morning I got up for my morning run. Once I got onto the road I began to think about that opened window again. It wouldn't hurt if I swung over there. I can see if anyone's home. If so, I can spill my guts. I'll tell them about the car radio, about the noisy people next door who we suspected were drug dealers. Okay, maybe I won't go that far, but I'll give them fair warning. I'll tell them that, hey, I don't want to come off as your mother or anything, but you may not want to leave this window opened when you're not home. I pointed myself toward the old neighborhood.

It was when I turned onto South Highland from Farmington when my stomach let out. Off in the distance I could see police cruisers. The lights were flashing. Yellow tape was stretched across the road. I'm too late. Someone broke in and murdered them. I ran faster.

The closer I got, the more the picture came into view. The scene was close to the old place, but it wasn't AT the apartment. There had been a car accident. A really horrible car accident. A car was flipped over; another was crushed into its side. Amazingly, everyone had survived, though two people had been brought to the hospital.

My heartbeat came down. Rational thought took over again. I looked at the old apartment. The window was closed. The driveway was empty of cars. Everything appeared safe. This is not my responsibility. I'm not their mother. Sometimes we all have to learn from our mistakes. Besides, I'm probably blowing this out of proportion. I'm sure everything will be fine, outside of the noise and other horrors the Professor and I had to deal with when living there. 

Instead of lollygagging, I continued to run. When I got home, I started to write this post. The gnaw has subsided.

Though, to be honest, I know I'm going to swing by there some night after work, just to make sure that window is still closed.