SATURDAY MORNING WITH CRANKY DON JOE | The Doorbell Camera Has Turned Larry Into a Federal Agency

By Cranky Don Joe 

My name is Cranky Don Joe. Cranky DJ to a lot of my neighbors.

I am not an expert. Which immediately makes me more qualified than Larry, who bought a doorbell camera three weeks ago and now speaks as though the United States Senate has granted him subpoena power.

Friends, the man bought a doorbell. I want that entered into the official record before we go any further. He did not purchase a satellite, he did not receive a security clearance, and nobody from the Department of Homeland Security came to his house carrying a briefcase. There was no congressional appropriation, no classified annex, and no official transfer of federal authority.

Larry bought a doorbell camera.

The original purpose was reasonable: he wanted to see who came to the door when he was not home. I supported this. Somebody rings the bell, the camera shows you who it is, and you decide whether the person requires your immediate physical attention. That is a perfectly useful household arrangement.

Then Larry downloaded the phone app. Everything changed.

The first clear indication arrived when he walked over one morning carrying his phone and said, "There was activity at 2:13."

I was drinking coffee in my kitchen. "Activity where?" "Near the porch." "What kind of activity?" "We're still trying to determine that."

I lowered my coffee cup. "We?" Larry looked at me. "Who is we, Larry?"

He ignored the question and turned the phone screen toward my face. The display showed a grainy, dark image of Larry's front steps. Something small appeared near the lower corner.

"There," he said. "What am I looking at?" "Watch." The object moved. "Larry, that's a squirrel." "That's what I thought." "Then why did you say you're still trying to determine what it was?" "I wanted another opinion." "You woke me up to obtain a second opinion on a squirrel?" "I didn't wake you up, Don." "Not today. The squirrel was at 2:13 in the morning." "I didn't call you then." "Thank God your agency still maintains operating hours."

Larry enlarged the image with two fingers. "See what it's carrying?" "No." "Neither can I." "Because it is a squirrel at two o'clock in the morning!"

Before Larry bought this camera, squirrels had apparently been crossing his property for decades without filing official travel itineraries. They came and went under cover of darkness, climbed trees, buried nuts, and conducted whatever private squirrel business needed conducting while Larry slept peacefully through the entire operation. Civilization survived. Now every squirrel has an active case file.

The camera had not created new activity around Larry's house; it had simply created a way to notify Larry about background activity that had always been there. Larry did not care about this critical distinction.

A few days later, he came over again. "Something moved the recycling bin last night." "Wind," I said. "Possibly."

I looked at him. "What is the competing theory, Larry?" "I'm not saying there's a competing theory." "You said 'possibly' after I said wind." "Because we don't know for sure." "Was there high wind last night?" "Yes." "Was the recycling bin empty?" "Yes." "Did it move in the direction the wind was blowing?" "Approximately." "Then what exactly remains under active investigation?"

Larry pulled out his phone. The footage showed the recycling bin sitting near the edge of his driveway. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the plastic bin rolled slowly forward, turned slightly, and stopped.

Larry replayed it. "There. See?" "I see an empty recycling bin moving in the wind." "But look how it turns." "Larry, are you suggesting the recycling bin changed direction deliberately?" "I'm not suggesting anything, Don." "You have replayed this footage four times." "I just think it's interesting."

That is how federal agencies begin. Nobody sits down and says, "Today I am establishing a central intelligence service." They simply start collecting information and eventually discover they need a filing system.

Within two weeks, Larry's vocabulary had completely changed. A delivery driver became "an individual approaching the primary residence." The neighbor's cat became "movement along the east side of the property." A teenager retrieving a basketball became "someone entering the driveway." A plastic shopping bag blowing across the lawn became "an unidentified floating object."

I looked at the footage. "Larry, that's a Target bag." "Probably." "Probably?" "That's what it looks like." "What else could it possibly be?" He zoomed in. I walked home.

The problem with giving Larry a camera was not the camera; the problem was giving Larry real-time notifications. A notification carries psychological authority. Your phone vibrates, and suddenly whatever you were doing is temporarily less important than whatever the phone has decided you should know.

Motion detected. Person detected. Package detected. Activity detected.

My generation survived decades in which activity occurred without being detected by our telephones. Somebody walked past the house and we simply did not know; a raccoon crossed the driveway and no permanent digital record was created; the mail arrived when the mail arrived; and a package sat on the porch until somebody happened to open the door and say, "Oh, the package came." We lived dangerously.

Now you can follow a package across North America with the operational detail once reserved for military troop movements. I ordered socks recently. That is all I ordered: basic cotton socks. Within hours, I received an email telling me the order had been received. Later I was informed that the order had been processed. Then it shipped, reached a sorting facility, departed the facility, reached another facility, departed that facility, reached my metropolitan area, went out for delivery, and eventually arrived at my house.

The retailer emailed me, the carrier sent a push notification, my phone announced the delivery, and then Larry called.

"Your package came," he said. I closed my eyes. "I know, Larry." "I saw the driver." "I know." "He left it near the side of the porch." "I know." "Looks like a medium-sized box." "I KNOW."

There was a long silence. "What did you order?" "Socks." "Oh."

The United States infrastructure had mobilized every available communications network to inform me that my socks had completed their journey. I began to miss the old days when you ordered something and then experienced the ancient human emotion known as waiting.

Larry argued that the camera gave him complete peace of mind. I asked whether he actually felt more peaceful.

"Absolutely," he claimed. "How many notifications did you get yesterday?" He checked his app history. "Twenty-three." "Twenty-three?" "There was a lot of activity." "What activity?" "Mostly deliveries." "To your house?" "Some." "How many, Larry?" "Two." "So twenty-one notifications concerned things that were not your deliveries." "Not exactly." "What were they?"

He began scrolling through the list: a squirrel, the mail carrier, a neighbor walking a dog, another squirrel (possibly the same squirrel), a landscaping truck, a child riding a bicycle, the neighborhood cat, a blowing tree branch, a delivery to the house across the street, and Larry himself taking out the garbage.

I stopped him. "Your security camera notified you about yourself?" "I forgot to turn off alerts." "And when the alert came, did you check it?" He hesitated. "Larry." "Briefly." "You received video evidence that you had just taken out your own garbage and you still reviewed the footage?" "I wanted to see how clear the video was."

Friends, this is not peace of mind; this is unpaid administrative work. Larry had purchased a device to save himself the trouble of wondering who was at the door and somehow created a part-time job reviewing surveillance footage of his own porch.

It got worse when he discovered the camera could distinguish between certain kinds of movement. Now Larry no longer had motion; he had categories: Person, Package, Animal, Vehicle, and Unknown.

Unknown was his absolute favorite. Nothing improves a quiet afternoon like having your phone announce that something has happened while refusing to explain what it was.

One Saturday, Larry came over while I was working in the garage. "Unknown motion at 11:42." I kept working. "That's unfortunate." "You don't want to see it?" "No." "It might be something." "Everything is something, Larry."

He showed me anyway. We watched twelve seconds of video footage: nothing. He replayed it: still nothing. Then I noticed a tiny movement near the bottom of a shrub.

"Bird," I said. "You sure?" "No, Larry. Alert the governor."

He frowned. "You make fun of this, but if something actually happens, you'll be glad there's footage."

He had a point, which irritated me considerably. Doorbell cameras can be genuinely useful: they can show when a package arrived, let residents speak with visitors remotely, and provide a record of what happened near an entrance. Those are practical reasons to own one. My objection was never the camera; my objection was Larry treating ordinary neighborhood life as incoming tactical intelligence.

For most of my life, knowing what happened outside your house required occasionally going outside your house. You sat on a porch, walked to the mailbox, shoveled snow, or talked to the person next door. You noticed somebody had a new car because you saw the new car, not because your phone issued an alert at 4:38 in the afternoon saying VEHICLE DETECTED. Larry now possessed more raw data about individual movements around his property than he had ever owned before, but I wasn't convinced he knew his neighborhood any better.

One evening, we were sitting outside on my lawn chairs when Mrs. Henderson walked past on the sidewalk.

"Evening, Larry," she called out. "Evening, Mrs. Henderson."

She continued down the sidewalk. Larry immediately looked down at his phone.

"What are you doing, Larry?" "Camera notification." "That was Mrs. Henderson." "I know." "You just watched her walk past with your own eyes." "I know." "Then why are you checking the camera?"

He looked at me as though I had asked why human beings require oxygen. "To see what triggered it."

I stared at him. "Larry, SHE triggered it! She just walked directly past us!" "I know that." "Then what new information are you hoping the camera will provide?"

He put the phone away, and I considered that a complete victory. Then his phone vibrated again. He looked at the screen.

"Squirrel," he muttered. Of course.

The strange thing was that Larry's camera eventually proved useful, though not during a burglary. Nobody attempted to invade his perimeter, and the recycling bin was never abducted.

One afternoon, a delivery driver left a box at my house while I was running errands. The weather had been unsettled all day, and a heavy rainstorm started shortly afterward. Larry received one of his beloved notifications, recognized the delivery at my house, walked across the street, and moved the box under the covered portion of my porch.

He sent me a text message: "Package came. Rain starting. Moved it back so it stays dry."

That was it: no threat assessment, no timestamp analysis, and no enhanced footage. Just a neighbor helping another neighbor. When I got home, the package was completely dry.

I thanked him over the fence. "See?" he said. I immediately regretted thanking him. "See what?" "The camera." "The camera did not move the package, Larry." "It told me it was there." "And then you helped." "Exactly." "No, Larry. You helped. That's the useful part."

He smiled. I knew I had lost the argument on a technicality.

Still, the episode clarified something important for me: technology can inform us that something occurred, but it cannot decide what kind of neighbor we are going to be after we learn about it. A camera can show a package sitting in the rain, but somebody still has to care enough to walk across the street. It can show you that somebody is standing at your door, but it cannot welcome the person inside. It can record Mrs. Henderson walking past your house, but it cannot ask her how her garden is doing. That still requires a human being.

Larry had accidentally demonstrated both sides of the coin. We have more ways than ever to know what is happening around us, but knowing what happened is not the same as taking part in the life around us. Larry could tell me that something crossed his porch at 2:13, he could enlarge the image, replay the footage, and identify the subject as a squirrel with reasonable confidence, but none of that necessarily meant he understood his neighborhood better; sometimes it just meant he understood his notifications better.

I told him this, and he disagreed, naturally.

"The camera helps me stay aware, Don." "Of squirrels?" "Of everything." "You don't need to be aware of everything, Larry." "Why not?" "Because everything includes a windblown plastic bag." "You laughed at the recycling bin too." "The wind moved it!" "We don't know that conclusively." "YES, WE DO."

He smiled, and I went home.

Several weeks later, Larry and his wife left town for a long weekend. Before leaving, he came over with instructions about his house: mail, garbage, and a plant near the back window.

Then he added, "I'll give you temporary app access to the camera." "No," I said. "You might need it." "I won't." "If somebody comes to the door..." "They can leave." "If there's a delivery..." "I will eventually discover the package through the traditional method of eyesight." "It could be useful, Don." "Larry, I am not joining your intelligence agency."

He laughed and sent the access link anyway. I ignored it.

Friday evening, my phone vibrated: Motion detected. I did not look; I am an adult. Three minutes later, another notification appeared: Motion detected. I continued reading my book. Another notification: Animal detected.

Squirrel, I thought. Not my jurisdiction. I remained strong.

Twenty minutes later: Person detected.

I looked at the screen. I would like the record to reflect that I did not open the app immediately; there was a delay of at least four seconds. The footage showed a delivery driver placing a box near Larry's door. Perfectly normal. I closed the app.

Later that evening, another alert arrived: Motion detected. I ignored it for almost a minute, then checked: cat. I was becoming deeply concerned about my own willpower.

Saturday morning brought another notification: Person detected. I opened the app immediately. A man was standing near Larry's porch. I did not recognize him. I watched as the man stepped out of view, then returned. I enlarged the image.

Maybe it was Snowblower Paul. No, wrong jacket. Could be Red-Pickup Frank? No, too tall. I replayed the footage. The man bent down near the steps, and I leaned closer to my phone screen.

"What are you doing?" I said aloud to the phone.

The man stood up holding a morning newspaper. Oh. I closed the app. Two minutes later, I opened it again just to confirm: newspaper, definitely a newspaper. I had become Larry.

By Saturday afternoon, I knew when the mail arrived, when the neighbor's cat crossed the walkway, when a package was delivered, when a leaf blew past the steps, and when one extremely persistent squirrel returned to the porch. I began to recognize the individual squirrel, and that troubled me deeply.

Sunday morning, Larry called from his trip. "Everything okay at the house?" "Fine," I said. "Any problems?" "No." "Any activity?" "No."

There was a long pause. "You sure, Don?" "Definitely."

My phone vibrated in my hand: Motion detected. I looked automatically. A figure was moving toward Larry's house from the side yard.

"Hold on," I said. "What?" Larry asked. I enlarged the live image. "Somebody's approaching your eastern perimeter."

There was absolute silence on the line. Then Larry said, very slowly, "My what?"

I froze. He started laughing hysterically. I closed the app immediately.

"Don't," I warned. "Don..." "Don't say a word, Larry." "I wasn't going to say anything!" "You were." "I was just going to ask whether the agency had issued an official threat assessment."

I hung up on him.

Friends, I owe Larry a minor apology. Not because he was right—let's not become reckless. I owe him an apology because I spent several weeks believing that his doorbell camera had transformed him into a federal agency. It had not; the camera simply gave him the opportunity. Give an ordinary human being a live video feed, motion alerts, timestamps, recorded footage, and the ability to zoom in on a squirrel at two o'clock in the morning, and sooner or later somebody is going to start talking about the eastern perimeter. I lasted one weekend.

The following Monday, Larry returned home and revoked my temporary access. I was relieved, mostly.

At approximately 2:15 Tuesday morning, I woke up for no particular reason. I looked at the bedside clock: 2:15. Then I stared at the ceiling. For several long seconds, I tried not to think about it. Finally, I rolled over in bed and wondered whether the squirrel had come back.

Friends, this is how they get you.

Until next time, Cranky DJ

❤️ SUPPORT MINNEAPOLIMEDIA

---

STAY CONNECTED TO MINNEAPOLIMEDIA

Local stories matter. Subscribe free to MinneapoliMedia and receive independent news, community reporting and important updates from Minneapolis, the North Metro and communities across Minnesota.

SUBSCRIBE FREE: https://minneapolimedia.town.news/subscribe

MinneapoliMedia | Community. Culture. Civic Life