I Really Gotta Do Something About That Wig Head. It's Gonna Start Freaking Me Out.

The headline read, "Most Peculiar News Stories of 2008." It certainly caught my attention. I assumed it would be another story starring Kacey Anthony. Of course I suppose that would be "Most DISTURBING News Stories of 2008."

Oh, it was an interesting read alright. A family cremated their mom and continued cashing her retirement checks? Hey, it could happen. And a baby born on 8/8/08 weighing 8lb. 8oz.? Big deal. I mean, has anyone ever heard of the Anti-Christ?

But this?

This could not happen.

Not in my house, anyway.

TOKYO - A homeless woman who sneaked into a man’s house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.

Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man’s closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.

The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.

One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.

“We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide,” Itakura said. “When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."

The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man’s house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.

The closet is part of a Japanese-style room, one of several rooms in his one-story house where the man lived alone — or so he had thought.

Police were investigating how she managed to go in and out of the house unnoticed, as well as details of her life inside the closet, and if she had taken anything else besides food.She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and apparently even took showers, Itakura said, calling the woman "neat and clean."

Uhhhh, what the?

Okay, let me countdown the ways that this would never / could never happen in my home.

10. No one - I repeat, no one - would want to live for one HOUR (let alone one year) in the top of my closet. Unless they liked being ensconced between maternity clothes, 3 boxes of clothes "I swear I'll be able to get back in to someday," some old Kenny Rogers cd's and a wig draped across a scary looking Styrofoam head (which can be used to torture some 2 year olds).

9. She would not just be arrested for trespassing. She would also be arrested for scaring the peewater out of me, listening to every argument the AG and I have had in the past year (since we prefer to have them in the closet) and seeing me naked. (Which now that I think about it, might mean she has suffered enough punishment for one lifetime.)

8. Okay, this was finally discovered by his installation of security cameras? And the pictures were sent to his cell?? Well, good for him. I for one cannot figure out how to charge my digital camera, I have dropped it twelve times and it will no longer zoom in or out, and I lose my cell phone at least three times a week. Needless to say - he was more equipped for this kind of thing than I would be.

7. When the house was finally searched they found her curled up in the top of the closet, on her side. See, again, this kind of thing would not have happened because of that stupid wig I have in the top of my closet would have thrown everyone off the trail. I really have to get rid of that thing.

6. Police were investigating how she went in and out of the house unnoticed. Hmmmm...does the man that owns this house have children? Cuz I gotta tell ya, you put two babies in that house and A LOT of things go unnoticed. At this very moment there could be a family of little people living in my dryer and I wouldn't have a clue. Seriously. If the man has small children there is a good chance she walked in and out of the house on a daily basis and was never seen. He may have even said things to her like, "Can you hand me that burp cloth," or "Would you try to flush that toilet one more time before it overflows," before he ever even realized she existed.

5. They were also checking to see if she had taken anything else besides food? Uhhhh, what about his privacy? His sanity? His ability ever pee again without the dreaded feeling that someone is watching him?

4. They want to know about her life inside the closet. "Well, there wasn't a lot to do. But thankfully, since he was Japanese there was a 42 inch plasma on the wall I could watch. Not to mention several digital cameras I could play around with. There might have even been a Toyota in there. But the clothes were ridiculous, they all hit me just above the ankles."

3. She took a mattress in there? Can we all just say together...How big was that stinkin' closet?

2. He said she was "neat and clean." Did you really expect him to say anything else? I mean, if she had been a holy mess and reeked of garbage and STILL went unnoticed in his house - then what does that really say about him?

And the number one problem I have with this story...

1. Did it honestly take him a year to notice food was missing in his house? Because I distinctly remember waking up my entire family over the Thanksgiving holiday and challenging them to a dual if they were the one that drank the last Dr. Pepper. So I'm fairly positive that if my eggs, loaf of bread and mayo kept coming up short, mamma's gonna have to hash it out with someone. And quickly.