On Burglar Alarms...

The burglar alarm from the house two doors down went off earlier this afternoon, and did not turn off immediately thereafter in the classic "Oh poot, I forgot to punch in the code" fashion I'm more used to. I found out later that a couple of neighbours also heard it and independently went to check things out, but I was very unheroic and called the police instead. They were prompt, friendly and efficient, a credit to the New Zealand Police Force.

(What happened is that the lady who lives there had hired a minion-for-the-day from Student Job Search, left the garage open so that the minion could access tools, and forgotten to give him the alarm code, so it was actually an entirely innocuous alarm. The policeman I talked to said that it's always best to call in these situations, though, just in case.)