I woke up at four this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. The Boy got up just after eight, and I still wasn't ready to fall back asleep. He left just before nine and I heard him lock the door.
I keep the door locked pretty much all the time. This comes from living in a dorm room on a busy hallway where everyone else on the floor, I don't know, grew up together or something.
On the two occasions I do recall having left the door unlocked, someone wandered in. It was an instant, "Dude, oh, sorry," but the room numbers were on the fricken door and my door was the only one on the hall that didn't have a bunch of crap all over it. You would think even if you were drunk, you wouldn't make that mistake.
In our apartment, we were right across the hall from some people who moved out. We had people try our door all the time and if it was unlocked, they'd walk right in. Again, college environment, when you've only been someplace when you're drunk, you must not have a real clear idea where things actually are. I guess when they couldn't get in, they'd turn around and think, "Wait, no, maybe it was that one!"
Anyway, I like porches and hallways that give wandering vagrants a little distance between me and them. Also, windows that at least look out somewhere in the vicinity of the door.
Our current place has a deck that is really quiet. You can't hear anyone walk up it unless they're talking. There are absolutely no windows at any angle to the deck to let you see who's out there. The door has a peephole, but the tile in front of the door snaps a little, so if someone's really listening, you can hear that someone is there. I like to give the impression that the house is empty when I'm home simply because I'd rather have people breaking in because it's empty, not because there's a young, vulnerable female inside. Of course, when we go out of town we'd rather give the impression the house is tenanted, on much the same principle. Trusting folks, aren't we?
Cue this morning, a couple hours after TB left just as I'm finally ready to go back to bed and have actually lain down and closed my eyes. I hear the screen door open. I wonder why TB is back, and then it settles in my mind that since it's Saturday, maybe they decided to break at breaktime, take a long lunch and come back later in the afternoon.
Knocks at the door. Now I'm a bit annoyed. I know he has his keys because you can't lock the door without them- you can't lock yourself out of the house. When he left, he should've assumed I was going to go back to sleep eventually. Still, sometimes he can't unlock the door because he's got his hands full, but, screw it. For all he knows, I'm sleeping and he's being kind of a jackass.
More knocking. It stops, then comes to the bedroom window. I listen to see if he'll yell to indicate who he was. The morning that the screen door froze shut and I was stuck outside while he was sleeping, that's what I did so he'd know it was me and not an axe murderer.
No yell is forthcoming.
Oh great. It's an axe murderer.
But then, why would an axe murderer knock?
Obviously, I've come to the conclusion that this is not TB. Any friends we have are at work with TB. I get up and find some pants (because any situation is automatically more reassuring when you've got your pants on), and wander cautiously to the front of the house to find my mobile and call him anyway. I leave a message. That way when the crazy axe murderer breaks down the door, he'll have a final message from me to think back on. The knocking returns.
I hear an engine running and crouched down under the sill peer out the front window blinds to see a huge fricking 80s conversion van. Yikes. (For that matter, were there any conversion vans made after the 80s?) I know no one cool enough or tacky enough (because there's no middle ground with those) to own a conversion van. I wonder briefly if some of The Boy's relatives have decided to drop us a visit, and then decide that I'm really too tired for this speculating crap, and they can give up and go home.
More knocking, the engine roars, the van disappears. I wish I could see a license plate number.
I make some breakfast and curse the conversion van for ensuring that I can't go back to sleep now. I wander back into the bedroom and not five minutes later, I hear the roar of an engine and there's this loudass knocking on my door.
Now I wonder vaugely if mine is the only car on the street. This is sometimes the case, and we've had people stopping before to ask for things we cannot give because we're visible. "Do you have fifty bucks?" "Do you have canned vegetables?" "Can you give my buddy a ride to Saint Louis?" "Got a gas siphon?" "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?" (I can't make this shit up.)
The knocking turns to banging on the window again. Like, "Windows, what the hell do you need windows for?" banging. And I am pissed, because it's much earlier than I've been up in a long time, and I would like to go back to sleep and I do not need the windows broken.
Determining that I can now fell axe murderers with one swift glance, I pound up to the door and yank it open, and there's this fat little Asian guy standing there. With a very stunned look on his face.
"Isn't some-guy-who-is-SO-not-me here?"
"No."
He withers as he realises what exactly he's been doing. "Oh. Oh. So sorry. So, so sorry."
He and his conversion van high tail it out of there.
And now I can't get back to sleep again.