My mom double and treble locks the doors when she leaves, and leaves them pretty much unlocked all night. I told her 'mom, you're the only value this house ever has!" Old habits die hard, I guess.
 

Um. Stop that. I always turn the alarm on when we're all home. Why have it otherwise? To alert the neighbors when you're away and being burgled? No. To alert you when you're home and being burgled.
 

haha, Ralphie, that's pretty funny.
A new syndrome for the books: "Alarm dysfunction"...what would be a good medication for that?
 

My neighborhood is pretty safe, so I don't have an alarm to turn on or off. Where do you boys live?:)
 

No, it doesn't reflect low self-esteem -- quite the opposite, it reflects unjustifiably high self-esteem. That is, it reflects the fact that you vastly over-estimate your own ability to defend the house and it's contents when you're home.

Or perhaps, it reflects overly high esteem for the burglers. That is, that you know burglers are less likely to break in when they think you are home -- but you over-estimate their ability to tell when you are home.

;-)
 

Og: My old roommate used to leave the apartment unlocked when he was home. And sometimes when he wasn't...

Bean: "Burgled" has an extremely lopsided "funny-sound-to-gravity-of-meaning" ratio. I am trying to remember to keep the alarm on while I'm home. Thank ye kindly.

CM: I think there's a pill for that now.

LE: You know exactly where we are... on a street that has had its fair share of incidents in the last month or so... and around the corner from a park that once featured our very own gangland slaying! I love L.A.!

River: Welcome. I think maybe you're right about the high self-esteem. It's either that or my chinese throwing stars.
 

lopsided "funny-sound-to-gravity-of-meaning" ratio

Like "exsanguinate"!
 

Exsanguination - Is that done deliberately on humans? I thought blood-letting was a technique that has long fallen out of use. Please, reassure me.
 

I could be wrong -- I'm sure Dr Bean will soon clarify this -- but I don't think exsanguination is a medical TREATMENT (except maybe in Transylvania). I think it's a medical CATASTROPHE and refers to someone experiencing rapid blood loss -- bleeding out.

But BTW there IS a blood condition for which blood-letting is prescribed -- too much copper in the blood, something like that? -- or too much iron? -- and the cure is [sometimes] to donate blood. Some condition that affects men and post-menopausal women but not women of an age to still be losing blood monthly. Again I'm sure Dr Bean will enlighten us or one of the other doctors on staff will.
 

What i don't understand is how we got from Ralphie not turning on the alarm when he is home, to post-menopausal women requiring blood- letting!Could this be a logic pathway test in prep for the MCAT? Svenmom
 

Perhaps the logic is that no alarm system can possibly protect us from every source of existential anxiety, so what difference does it make in the grand scheme of things whether the alarm is on or off?
 

Exsanguination is the body losing blood. Like bleeding.

Phlebotomy is therapeutic blood letting, like leeches or donating blood for such diseases as hemochromatosis (too much iron) or polycythemia (too much red blood cells).
 

Psychotoddler with the plastic fangs and cape is correct re exsanguination and phlebotomy.

I only meant that exsanguination is a funny-sounding word for a very very serious thing, like burgled.
 

They used leeches on a recent episode of "Grey's Anatomoy." Not that I watch it...
 

Dr. Bean, can't you get Ralphie hooked on Battlestar Galactica??
 

Another reason I don't have an alarm is that I'm just itching, itching I tell ya, to break out the Smith & Wesson for the poor bastard who makes his last, fatal mistake of encroaching into my castle, when not invited!:)
 

I've always considered myself more of a spaz.
 

Toby Katz: You're thinking of hemochromatosis, which is too much iron in the blood. It's the opposite of anemia. Untreated hemochromatosis can cause liver failure and all sorts of nasty things. See here for some details.

It's a genetic disease. I know one person whose sister has it. Her mother and grandmother were regular blood donors, and as a result never discovered they had it until the sister ended up in liver failure. (The doctors initially refused to believe she was not an alcoholic!)

The treatments it to remove blood, a half-liter a week until iron levels return to normal, and remove blood as needed after that. The ironic thing isthat if you've been diagnosed with this disease, they won't allow you to donate blood, even though your blood is of abnormally high quality.