A few years ago I was sitting in front of the TV on a warm summer evening and realized there were faint lights flashing on my wall. I got up and walked toward the window to peek out and see if I knew the person getting a ticket. Instead my door burst open and a policeman stepped through it with his gun out. My dogs did what dogs do and the next thing I knew the gun was aimed down at a pack of snarling, barking cocker spaniels.

Without a second’s thought or a word exchanged I shoved him back out the door and slammed it behind me yelling something along the lines of “What the hell are you doing?”

He disappeared as fast as he appeared when it turned out he was at the wrong house and I found myself standing in the driveway trying to explain to my neighbors what just happened.

In retrospect, I can’t believe I shoved him. I just had to separate my dogs from the gun, immediately. I never considered that I could get shot. It has crossed my mind in the passing years and, more than ever this week, that things likely would have gone differently if I were a young black man instead of a gray-haired old white lady.

It’s not even exaggerating to say I would probably be dead.

Mary Callahan, Lisbon