Just when you thought this blog had become so stale that it was time for the garbage, fate brings me a large golden egg of a story…
It’s Tuesday night (technically Wednesday morning) at 3am. I’m awaken by a text message from my roommate. It reads:
It sounds like someone is on the roof. Did you lock the balcony door? I’m freaked out.
Tired and irritated I go upstairs to appease my roommate and check things out. I knock on her door and my presence calms her down a bit. We listen and we do hear something on the roof! What is it? There are definitely foot steps…and I hear something that sounds like a large object is being dragged across the roof. Still half awake, I have a heightened sense of alarm. I contemplate what to do with my roommate. It’s 3am, who could be on our roof? The only neighbors we know (our duplex neighbors at 805 18th St) have never been on our roof (to our knowledge). The only other possible explanation could be…an intruder! I close our balcony door. At that point it crosses my mind to yell up and see who it is. I think, “What if they are going to attack me? I have no real defense.” So, I opt to lock the door and go downstairs with my roommate.
There, my mind and heart are racing. I am 83% sure we have a burglar on our roof. I calmly dial 9-1-1.
“Hello, 911. What’s your emergency?”
“I don’t really know if this is an emergency, but there might be someone on our roof.”
“Sir, stay on the line. I’m sending an officer over.”
Now I’m really worked up (yet I exuded Fonzi-esque coolness). I continue to describe what I’m hearing to the operator as he tells me that he’ll let me know when the officers are outside my door. I hear voices, I try to discern where they are coming from. It sounds like they’re in our kitchen! I instruct my roommate to stay back. I’m anticipating the worst, I think there might be a physical confrontation. Not wanting to engage in combat with the police locked out I go to unlock the front door. As I’m there I hear more voices outside. I pop my head out the door and see three officers outside. I hear, “Someone’s up there! Get down from there!” At this point, the officers are surrounding the home. I remember that my other roommate is asleep in her room. Her room has a side consisting only of a sliding glass door. Her greatest fear is for someone to attack her at night through this door. I was afraid the cop’s flashlight would alarm her so I took the inititive to wake her up. This is how I woke her up:
[Man quietly walks into bedroom and shakes sleeping roommate]
“Don’t be alarmed…we may have an intrudor…the police are outside!”
“WHAAAT!?!?!?!”
She instantly pops up, half naked, and runs to the door. The cops are there asking for roof access. In a whirlwind of 7 seconds, she runs back to her room, conscience of her lack of clothing, and pulls on pants while escorting the cops to the balcony. The cops yell out, asking who is on the roof. Here it is, the moment of truth…who is on our roof?
“I live at 805″
Shiiiiiiiiit. That’s my neighbors voice! We just called the cops on our neighbor making out on the roof. All that drama and suspense of nothing! Oh what a fool I am! The cops leave visibily perturbed that it was only a neighbor.
Hindsight is 20/20 and I probably should have just yelled out to see who it was. I would have found out it was my neighbor and I would have been able to pee and go back to bed in a total of 2 minutes. However, being woken up at 3am is much different. We have been programmed to think the worst. We think we hear something, and when we DO hear it, it must be what we thought it was…a burglar. Thanks to this story people announce themselves upon arrival to our house so I won’t call the cops. So, you’re more than welcome to come visit, just don’t come through the roof.
Something very similar to this happened to me and Rene some years back when we were hanging out at his place very late one night. We kept hearing tapping noises, then knocking at odd places around the house, but not seeing anyone outside, and getting super creeped out, we called the cops. Cops came, saw nothing, and we felt like fools for calling them out. Then we get a call later that night (after the cops had left) from a friend who says they were trying to see if we were up but didn’t want to wake up any parents, if they were around. Boy, they were lucky they weren’t around when the cops showed up, haha, but dude, wrong way to approach a house late at night. So, moral of this story and yours? People should be more mindful of what they’re doing late at night, regardless if you’re accidentally doing the scaring or being on the scared side