READY?

I've been flirting with the idea of Joelle staying home by herself. She has only done this on 3 occasions and it literally was for 10 minutes at a time. Two times she had a friend with her. Why at 11 1/2 do I fear her being by herself? I think it's pretty easy. The world is scary. Let's face it. Behind my house, in the "village", lives several sex offenders. Who knows where they lurk? More importantly...what's the rush? It's not difficult to get in the car and take Joelle where I need to go. I've been doing it for 11 years so why would I stop? I wouldn't even allow her to ride her bike to school in the fifth grade (well, I would but I'd be holding up traffic because I would be following her in my car and wouldn't go an inch past her). Again, I've heard too many horror stories and I didn't need some weirdo calculating the times she left for school and the daily route she took.
I bring this up because it is February vacation week. This makes it hard to do what I need to do to earn an income. I need to run over to one of the outlet stores for about 1/2 hour and am thinking I'm going to leave her here. On my way out the door will be these instructions: "Keep the doors locked. Don't open the door for ANYONE. Keep your cell phone right beside you. Call me IMMEDIATELY if you need me, etc....
Overprotective? You bet.