On this day when we celebrate the birth of America, we salute the most American thing of all: The use of beer to fend off intruders.
When a man broke into her California home in the middle of the night and attacked her in bed, 45-year-old Linda Dodson attempted to fight him off, even biting his hand. But it was Dodson's 71-year-old mother, who was sleeping in an adjacent room, who really thought on her feet. After she tried to pry the guy off her daughter and the burly burglar slammed her into the wall, the older woman sniffed a whiff of alcohol on his breath.
"I just looked at him because I could tell he had been drinking and I
said, I don't know about you, but I could use a beer, how about you?"
she said, as reported in the L.A. Times. "And he said yes."
So the two women and the guy who just tried to beat them up sat down in the kitchen and threw back a few. Each of the ladies got up separately to use the bathroom and, at some point, Dodson was able to sneak off and call 911. The intruder, Louie Herrera, was subsequently arrested.
See, that's the kind of mom I want to be: One who is smart enough to know that beer can distract someone from harming my kids. But what I really want to know is what the three of them possibly could have talked about while they sucked down those brews.
"Hey, remember that time ten minutes ago, when you tried to strangle me? Man, those were the days."
"Have you seen 'Iron Man' yet?"
"So do you break into houses like this a lot? Or do you do something else for a living?"
The good news is that no one was hurt and the dude, who also happens to be a convicted child molester, is in prison. And, as often happens, it was a mom who saved the day.
