TIFU by extending my nightly smoke break.

This was last night and I’m still a bit freaked out. I live in a townhome with my bf and 2 other friends less than a mile away from downtown. Our neighborhood is pretty safe for the most part, but at night there are some stragglers that come around. The townhomes aren’t in a gated community but there are cameras everywhere to deter theft.

In the past few months, I’ve been leaving the garage door open during the night after I smoke; I like to keep it open sometimes to lessen the smell of cigarette smoke. So last night, just like any other, I went down to smoke my last cig for the day. It was about 1:30am and I had my garage door opened slightly (4 feet off the ground) and as always, I sat in my chair between my car and the wall.

My neighbors are mostly in their late 20’s-30’s and they party A LOT. They also come home very late so it’s not unusual to hear footsteps or cars driving by at 2am. I don’t watch videos on my phone while I smoke, I just scroll through Reddit or other media. Since I smoke alone, it’s really quiet in my garage because I’m just sitting there reading and smoking.

My roommate has been reminding me lately to close the garage door when I’m done just in case someone comes around and has some funny ideas. I got done with my smoke break, but I think, “what the heck? One more for the road!” This is where I kinda FU.

I heard footsteps outside and I thought nothing of it. They got closer and were picking up in speed until I heard my garage rattle. Still sitting down, I looked and saw a guy in a red hat, red jacket, and one of those black face coverings where you can only see the eyes and nose. It kinda looked like my roommate and he usually comes in the garage after going out late somewhere. He also tries to scare me whenever I’m in there, so in my head, I thought it was him!

Ik Ik, not my brightest moment. I thought this random guy was my roommate trying to scare me. He was standing there, looking around but he didn’t see me. I can see him through the windows of my car and I let out a sarcastic valley girl “HEEeeeLLLLllllOOOOoooo??”. He froze and his eyes got wide, scanning the room to see where that sound came from. I thought “this mf is trying to scare me” and stood up to go around my car.

I was going to confront him and say “nice try AH”! My eyes were still locked on to this guy as I stood up from my chair and as I started walking around my car, I see him crouch down by the passenger door. That is when I realized it was not my roommate. Oh my god, this is some random guy trying to rob us! I’m by the drivers door and I start thinking of what I should do since I don’t know how dangerous this guy is. I’m 5’3 at 102lbs, there’s not much I can do against him but I keep one of those police baton thingies (my brother gave me) near me for such situations.

I also had the element of surprise. Since I was standing, I can clearly see him through my car window crouching down looking around, eyes still wide as ever. Before I even react to reach my weapon, he shuffled backed a bit and then turned around only to scurry off like a rat. I yelled back “that’s right AH”! I closed the garage and called my bf down and we went outside. Long story short, we found them and my bf confronted them and they sped off. I learned my lesson and now I keep the garage closed and take my smoke breaks on the roof. I’m just glad nothing more serious happened.

TL;DR: TIFU by extending my smoke break and light one more cigarette before going up stairs. I’m a quiet smoker and the garage door was slightly open so a thief thought no one was in the garage. He came in, I spooked him, and he ran off into the night.