12:40 AM, Christmas. That very loud alarm on Fulton Ave. started up. ("BAKuhweh BAKuhweh BAKuhwey you have VIolated an ARea proTECted by a SECURity SYStem BAKuhwah BAKuhweh BAKuhweh WEEEOOOWEEEOOOWEEEOOO") This time I only let it go five minutes before calling the police. I figure nobody in a 2+ block radius really wants to listen to it very long in the wee hours of Christmas morning. I wonder why it gets set off so bloody often, and why it always takes my calling the police myself to get it shut off. Nobody else calls? Passing police cruisers don't hear it? The alarm system itself doesn't dial somebody? Is there something especially valuable in that one house, or somebody really clumsy living there? It's gotta be waking people up for about a block in each direction (and annoying people who were already awake for twice that distance).
And I had just gone to bed myself.