Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Disturbia....(How to Catch a Thief)

Dearest Friends,

Today's tale is one of suspense and shock, and ultimately, a life lesson. After a lovely dinner with my fav pal S in which we celebrated life by consuming fried potato tacos covered in sour cream, guacamole, queso fresco and salsa (it was so worth it!) I bid her goodnight and went to do some "work" (ie: blog stalking, emailing, time wasting) on the computer. "Had it really reached midnight already," I wondered? I was intent on spending "just one more minute" searching through my photos from Ethio in hopes of finding more pictures for families who had received referrals. I knew I should go to bed, but why sleep when catching up on everyone else's life is so much more interesting.....

I heard some pretty loud noises coming from the house below us and guessed that our landlord had just returned from his recent trip. Yikes! The noise is actually getting really close to our porch...wait? Is someone opening the door? Yes, that does sound like the door is opening.

I flipped out and ran to the bedroom to wake up N. By this time I KNEW someone was walking through our house....I woke up N and scream/whispered "someone is in our house." N is a pretty heavy sleeper, but seriously hates that I tend to over dramatize things and wake him up on a weekly basis. This time was for real, folks........The footsteps intensified and so did the random paper shuffling and pounding around the house. N went out to confront the "guest" (In hindsight we agree that this was perhaps foolish...)

For those of you who have been to our house, you know that it is very, very, very old and has some strange quirks, which on my good days, I call "personality." One of those quirks happens to be hook locks on the outside of several doors.

As N went to follow the mysterious intruder, I frantically attempted to find my cell phone which was (typical) dead. I found N's phone and called 911...The operator told me twice to repeat my address b/c I was talking so quietly.....something along the lines of "someone is in my (*&(*& house and I don't know what the hell they are doing. hurry!!!"

Remember those quirky locks? Um, yeah, so N locked the "guest" (by this point we realized that we had never invited this guest to our house and did not know who he was) into the bathroom. Yup. That's just how bad ass he is.

I went outside.

I waited for the police.

They came.

They pulled out the guns and kicked open the door.

They took the man away.

We went back to the house in shock.

So, we don't know who he was or why he decided to pay us a visit. Apparently he was totally tweaking and perhaps went into the wrong house. All I know is that it was super scary and that I jumped twice today when coworkers approached by desk when I wasn't facing them.

During family safety training earlier today, we concluded that we will just leave the house next time this happens.

This story totally tops the time we found the gun on our porch.

Ok, I'm just trying to be sensational.

Oh, and the moral? Never feel guilty for staying up late wasting time on the Internet. If I had gone to bed earlier, it would have been much scarier to wake up with someone random in my house.

7 comments:

MMG said...

This is a really interesting story and all, but I'm just wondering why I wasn't there eating potato tacos?

Neb said...

N is a thug.

Stacy Peterson said...

WHAT!!!!! Oh my gosh!

Don't mess with "N"

Did the dude put up a fuss??

I need to re-hear this story in person!

Maribeth said...

...and to think I was complaining last night that I wanted to move back to Chicago

Unknown said...

Oh wow Richelle, that is terrifying. I love that he locked him in the bathroom..that's awesome! I'm so glad you guys are ok!!

Steve Thorngate said...

Geez. They kicked in the door!

Glad you all are ok.

los cazadores said...

Oh R!!! OMG! That is SCARY! I thought it was going to end up being someone you know! I have to tell (when we get to meet and chat and hopefully eat potato tacos together smathered with sour cream) the episode where a drunk driver ran straight into a light pole outside of our apt., but we thought the sound was an intruder smashing down our door. So Craig went out to confront the intruder in his underwear with a rifle. Seriously! It wasn't an intruder though, but yours WAS!! AAAAHHH!

You have to update and tell us what the police said, who it was, what they thought they were doing!!!

Cindy