The brazen burglar

I was babysitting a seven-year-old boy in the Hollywood Hills one day. I was about to give the kid a bath when I looked out the kitchen window and noticed a man sitting in a blue Toyota parked in the driveway. The house has a shared driveway with another property. I wondered why this guy was parked in the driveway of the couples home of whom I were babysitting. A few minutes later this man got out of his vehicle and walked over to what looked like in electrical control box for the neighbors automatic gate. He begin using tools so I figured that he was a repairman because he looked to be an older Filipino gentleman and also because it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

A few minutes went by and I went back to the window to check on the guy but he and his car were gone. Not too long later I noticed a couple cars parked oddly in the driveway. A few minutes later I noticed another car and a police 👮‍♀️ vehicle. I actually thought to myself jokingly, crazy white people you don’t call the cops when you can’t get into your gate. I thought that maybe the repairman didn’t do such a great job. However another police vehicle arrived and that’s when I decided it was time to go outside and find out what was going on.

If I recall correctly there were two men and two women standing on the outside of the gate talking. I approached them and let them know I was babysitting next-door and wondered if there was anything I needed to know for safety’s sake.

A very tall handsome man who looked somewhat familiar introduced himself as John. He proceeded to tell me that his assistant arrived and found that the gate had been pad locked from the inside and that they thought they had a break in. I then told them that I had seen an older man fussing with the box but thought that he was repairing it. I proceeded to tell them what I saw and as I described the man the police were bringing him out in handcuffs. John looked at me and asked, “Was it that guy?” My eyes got big and I said “Yes! And now I feel bad because I actually thought that you were crazy white people calling the police for a broken gate.” John looked at me and said, “Oh no, we are crazy white people.” We all had a good laugh and I ran back inside.

John turned out to be John Krasinski from the TV sitcom The Office and one of the women who was standing there was Emily Blunt (also known as Mary Poppins) John’s fiancé at the time. I honestly had no idea who she was and only a vague idea of who he was.

The funniest part of the story is that when the police arrived and knocked on the front door, the burglar opened the door holding a remote for the TV as well as a box of Chinese food which he had ordered from a nearby restaurant. He had parked his car at the top of the driveway and padlocked the gate behind him. He told the police that his friend had told him that the house was abandoned and that he could stay there for as long as he liked. His story was not at all believable especially because the house was fully furnished and there was cable. I’ve always wondered if he was in fact a squatter or simply a crazed fan. Either way I’m still amazed at how brazen he was to park in the driveway, break in during the middle of the day and then have the nerve to order Chinese food, watch cable and put his own lock 🔒 on the front gate. I was also amazed to discover that although they had lived in that home for years, the couple whom I were babysitting for had not known who their neighbors were. They were shocked! I’m just glad that no one was harmed, all ended well and I acquired yet another great Hollywood story to tell.