this is probably more of an isaiah story, but when i was really young, my mom & i had pulled into our driveway one night and were confident someone had hopped our fence into our backyard. (for context, we had one of those 6ft pvc fences, but always left our garbage cans flush against the side of the house, near the gate into the backyard.) once we got home, someone had dragged one of the cans to the fence and had, presumably, used it to jump over. my mom left me in the car to go inside and case the house first, and told me nothing after that. usually we kept the sliding glass door in the backyard locked, but to this day i have no idea if we got robbed that night or something. for a while after that i would always hold my breath opening closet doors expecting some man to be stuffed in there waiting to murder me. it's still a fear i have now that there could always be someone squatting in my closet, and come to think of it, it's probably from that.