From Landslides to Walmart

Any way you look at it, personal safety is a transient concept.

One summer, while I was in graduate school, my roommate came home with what appeared to be an incredible deal: house sitting for a professor who lived at Top Of The World in Laguna Beach.

Omigod, I thought. How lucky can you get? A whole summer spent lolling on the patio, high above Laguna Beach, sipping cocktails at sunset, taking in the panoramic ocean view. Sign me up, I told her.

Now, y’all have heard about the landslides in Laguna this week. Best as I can tell, the hill gave way about a mile or so from where I house sat that summer. Local radio talk jocks have been ranting about the rich people losing their multimillion dollar homes and asking for help.

Well, I don’t know about the homes that slid, but if they were anything like the one I stayed in that summer…

When I arrived, the first thing I noticed: no view. Well, let me correct that. There was a view, but it was in the opposite direction of the ocean…not that canyons of dried brush aren’t pretty, but you just don’t get the same inspiration you do from looking at the sea.

Second, I noticed the mold. Yes, mold. Growing along the walls of both bedrooms. Let’s make this perfectly clear. I’m talking the INTERIOR walls.

Third, I noticed the absence of a garbage disposal. Huh?? How does one survive without a garbage disposal? (And, did I mention the mold?)

I think I spent one entire night there…on the couch in the living room. The rest of the time I stayed with my boyfriend. The only reason I spent any time there at all was that we’d committed to keeping all the plants watered.

Oh, and how stupid is this? We each paid $50 a month to live there. (Yes, we hadn’t quite grasped the concept of house sitting.)

Anyway…that’s my connection to the landslides…

Next, the Walmart fiasco.

I arrive at work on Tuesday to sirens and hovering helicopters (both the news kind and the official kind). Soon, I learn that the guy who killed two people in a neighboring town the day before has randomly broken into another home, pistol whipped a woman and her two children, shot at a cop, and fled into the Walmart a mile from my office. Eventually, the helicopters flew off to other breaking stories, but according to the news, the guy was still holed up in the Walmart. Well, he was holed up, all right. But he was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. The woman he pistol whipped also died.

Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley. Each year they vie for “safest city in America with population 100,000.”

Something tells me neither will be at the top of the list for 2005.