I was living up in Syracuse with my first husband and I was about 8 1/2 months pregnant with my daughter when this man broke into my home. I heard him out there and started out to the kitchen when we spied each other. I immediately went into the fight or flight response. He told me not to run. I was covered in a bedsheet so he could not see that I was with child.

He told me to sit on the bed and came over and sat next to me. I told him he couldn't rape me and he asked why not. I told him.

He thought for a moment and then told me to lie down and he covered me with a blanket, told me to count to 100 before getting up again. Then he left (taking my husbands saxophone).

I counted to 100, dressed, left the house (never to return), called my husband, who came and got me.

The point of this long story is, as I told my husband and anyone who listened, was that if I had had a gun, I would have shot him and I was very glad I didn't have one.

Of course, if he had hurt me or my child, I might have felt differently. He had human kindness in him and I'm glad I couldn't shoot him.

Make what you will of that.

Love, Annamill