Just when you think you’ve seen it all, tape

Drop what you’re doing right now and walk to the front door of your home.

Go ahead.

That third cup of coffee, or the next Rockies highlight — of which there have been so very few this season — can surely wait.

This is important.

I’ll be roll-tapping my fingers while you sashay.

Drum.

Drum.

Drum-drum.

Drum.

Drum.

Drum-drum.

OK,  you’re there — good.

Now, open it.

Yes, it really is 83 degrees with a choke-out dew point.

Yes, it really is only 8:22 a.m.

And that sound you hear in the distance, building like a dystopian swell?

That’s a band of mosquitoes, good people, hustling your way in dirty, parched sheets — think a locust swarm, complete with the finishing-school charm of an F5 tornado.

But back to task.

Take a look at the deadbolt lock.

See anything?

I mean, besides that gorgeous Venetian bronze finish you just had to have a few years ago.

No?

Look closer.

Lean in.

Really scrutinize.

Like I told you, this is important.

Drum.

Drum.

Drum-drum.

Drum.

Drum.

Drum-drum.

Has it been tagged?

See also, covered with a piece of tape — take your pick on the variety.

It could be clear tape.

Electrical tape. Medical tape.

Drywall tape.

Floor tape, flagging tape, bakery tape or painter’s tape.

It might even be the little-used, mold-preventing antimicrobial film tape, but I doubt it.

Too pricey.

Or, as was the case on Saturday at my house, cloth adhesive tape — you know, the really sticky, pain-in-the-you-know-what-to-remove kind — and masking tape.

Why, you ask?

Because someone marked our home for a robbery.

•••

My wife didn’t answer the door, and I’m glad she didn’t.

Who knows what might’ve happened?

Because while I was out running an errand, we had a visitor — a lone stranger going knock-knock-knock at our chamber door.

Ugh.

Kelly assuredly sighed, and most likely, jettisoned the blanket across the couch in a Patrick Mahomes-style toss.

Naps are tradition at our house, and best served whole.

She rose anyway.

Lifted the living room blinds.

Voila.

Thanks, but no thanks, stranger — back to sleepy-time.

A while later, she’d tell me of our caller, which prompted me to the front porch.

And wouldn’t you know it?

Tape.

To the phone, I went — again — and Google, because I had to learn more about this strangeness.

Tape.

After a few seconds of start-stop fumbling in the search bar, I ended up typing something along the lines of what I hacked earlier in the day — when the first adhesive was discovered.

“What does it mean when tape mysteriously appears on your front door?”

Long-winded, but hey — unusual findings call for unusual scrawl.

Return.

A few buffered seconds later, there was a result from Quora — not exactly the Johns Hopkins of public-information sharing, but viable in our pinch — filling the screen.

Tape, it seems, on the lock of your front door is notice that someone is actively watching your home.

What’s more, if the sticky stuff is still there a day after being placed, said someone can reasonably assume the joint is ripe for unauthorized perusal; if gone or disturbed,  maybe not.

You see where this is going, right?

•••

The best neighbors always leave you to your business.

That’s what I was taught, anyway.

But in light of “Tape, the Enduring Sequel” — not to mention a piece clearly marking his own entrance — I felt compelled to bring mine in the loop.

Yikes.

Not my favorite task.

Double yikes.

But maybe, just maybe, I’d inform without frightening, or at the very least, not resembling the guy who forcibly interjects certain doom into every conversation.

Don’t be that guy, Justin — no one likes that guy.

So, deep breath.

Knock-knock-knock.

Knock-knock.

After a beat, he answered.

Go-time.

No looking back now.

And over the next 15 minutes, we talked, leading to him share that earlier that afternoon, he’d had the same visitor — a woman claiming to have lost family members in a car crash and needed a ride to Greenville.

Jeez.

That’s a lot to reconcile.

Now, I’m not challenging her story, because I wasn’t there, but this scenario was all of a sudden trending in the direction of a line famously delivered by Mel Gibson in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2002 film “Signs.”

“Is it possible that there are no coincidences?”

In this case, maybe, or maybe not — but I’m glad we arrived at a conclusion together, leaning on a few things known to break down and identify a few things unknown.

Peace of mind, no matter where you hang a hat, is a wonderful thing.

A blessing.

Something we all need in today’s ever-swirling, blink-and-miss-it gauntlet.

As for tape, I suppose I’ll never see it quite the same — except for the duct variety, of course, which I’ll continue laughing about every time someone mentions it.

Justin Hayes is The Enterprise’s news editor. Reach him via email at jhayes@springhopeenterprise.com .

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