I was raised in a smallish town where crime wasn't really an issue and guns were usually reserved for hunting.

When we moved to Charlotte, I remember lying in bed and listening to all the sirens. My husband was in heaven. He says he loves the city and especially loves all the noise of a city.

We live in a good part of town, an area that has recently been annexed into the city limits. Behind me are $160,000 homes, on the other side, $350,000 homes. Our community, I'm told, is the only complex on this side of town that doesn't take Title 8's (is it 8 or 9? I can't remember). For those who don't know, that is a program where the government subsidies your rent based on income. So because we don't accept that here, theoretically, we are pickier about who gets in and who doesn't(don't give me that, our community is quite diverse)

So last Friday night, being married and ass-broke, I was washing my hair and trying to find something to watch on t.v. I happened to notice a lot of cars in our parking lot, taking the spaces in front of our townhomes, one of my booga-boos. I didn't really think too much about it though, and figured our barely 21 neighbors across the street were having another one of their parties.

I sat on my couch and began flipping channels. The crap that passes as Friday Night Programming was interrupted by popping noises from outside.

Again, I really didn't think anything about it. It was not unusual for the neighbors to shoot off fireworks, even though we're inside the city limits. But the popping continued and I was beginning to get a little irritated, wondering how long the noise was going to go on.

Then, I heard three pops. Three pops that didn't sound like fireworks...evenly spaced and fast.

Curiousity told me to walk to the front window and look out...caution reminded this crazy, somewhat paranoid bitch, that stray flying bullets kill unsuspecting people in their homes all the time. Curiousity won out and I turned off the lights in my kitchen and peered out the window.

There was nothing but silence and I didn't see a soul anywhere. My son joined me by the window, his curiousity killing him as well, and we both scanned the parking lots for a minute or two.

As if the a flood gate had been suddenly opened, hordes of people came streaming around the corner, on foot, coming fromt the direction of our clubhouse. They weren't running, but they all moved fairly fast. The main road out of our complex became congested with traffic.

By the time my son and I heard the sirens, the parking lot had emptied. We could see the crime lab van searching the area at the end of our road, and several police cars drove through the parking lot.

The next day, our management distanced themselves legally from the "incident"(their words) by sending around a notice explaining what happened.

The clubhouse had been rented out for a party (a good tip if you're ever looking for a place to rent, check out different apartment communities' clubhouses, they're usually pretty reasonable and the pool area is often included). They never mentioned whether the renters were actually residents here, but said that several uninvited(yeah, right) people somehow got into our gated community and hung out in the parking lot and eventually got into a fight with party-goers(over what, we still don't know).

Of course I have no point to this, but oh well, the show outside was much better than anything on tv that night.

Sometimes, we just have to get our entertainment wherever we can.

LA out! (ok, now I'm just picking on Seacrest---yeah, Saffy, I'm sort of watching it)