No Need for a Neighborhood Watch

My kitchen table sits on the back corner of the house, surrounded on two sides by ceiling to floor windows. From there, you can see the backyard as far up as my parent's house (5 houses up the street), across the street since we're the first house up from the corner of a side street (there are 7 houses in view from that angle), and up towards the front of the house and across the street on that side. All told, you can see about 13 houses and many backyards from the vantage point of our kitchen table, at which we spend many hours.

Daelyn has become known as the neighborhood watch. He announces any traffic in or out of any of the yards or homes. He sees every stray pet within 2 blocks and tracks their movements. He can tell you who's home, whose cars haven't moved in a while, and who's visiting whom in the immediate vicinity. It can be a little scary.

Over Christmas, our neighbors to the corner called to say they were going out of town. They wanted Daelyn to know so he wouldn't worry about their car being gone and would watch over their property. This week, that same neighbor called. They were concerned because the vehicle belonging to the people across the street from them had not moved in several days. They thought perhaps the owner was sick and called to check on that family.

At first, I was a little surprised that they called me. I wasn't quite sure why they didn't call the couple's daughter, who lives next door to the house in question. It finally occurred to me that they figured Daelyn would have the scoop. After all, the car hadn't moved in several days. Daelyn was bound to have noticed and quizzed me, resulting in my checking on this couple myself.

I guess he's just been busy riding his bike and is falling down on the job. I'll have to warn him he needs to tighten up. His security reputation is at risk.