People don’t typically come knocking on my door unexpectedly on Saturday mornings (or any mornings, really). The last time I heard frantic knocking was over a year ago in my old apartment. On that morning, I heard the pounding, leapt from my bed in a frenzy and sprinted to my front door, only to realize that no one had been knocking at all. I had been sleeprunning, imagining the knocks in my dream to be real ones.
Fast forward to yesterday morning. The sound coming from my front door was so powerful, I could feel my walls shaking. It was definitely real.
BAMBAMBAM.
Naturally, my first thought was, What the hell time is it?, so I rolled over and groggily pulled my phone off the charger. It was 7:33am. Does UPS or FedEx or whatever deliver this early on the weekends? Dude, just leave my shit at the door…
BAMBAMBAM.
Delivery men don’t usually try that hard for an answer. Maybe someone needs me to move my car? Whatever. They can figure something out.
BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM.
The knocking marathon continued at a steady pace until I dragged my half-asleep, blind and confused self out of bed, quietly tip-toed past the kitchen, through the living room, up to the peephole and tried to make out the figure standing at my doorstep.
Navy uniform. Shiny thing on his chest. A walkie making garbled noises.
…The police?
I opened the door.
“FINALLY,” he said.
I don’t actually remember what my response was; I was caught off-guard by the man’s rudeness, and I was still functioning with a partially sleeping brain. I must have said something to the effect of, “What seems to be the problem, officer?”, but probably half as coherent.
“We’ve received two noise complaints for this apartment.”
“…Excuse me?”
“We have received two noise complaints from your neighbors. One of the callers said this sort of thing happens pretty often here, too.”
I tried not to laugh. “Are you sure you have the right place?”
“Yes. Apartment #*****. That’s where I’m standing right now, isn’t it?”
By this point, I was confused as all hell, with no ability to form a rational argument. I stood there for a moment thinking of how this might actually be my fault (Do I have night terrors? Was I yelling in my sleep? Running around the apartment or something?). All of these things could have actually been possible, but certainly not loud enough for someone, let alone two people, to file a complaint with the police.
While I was weighing the ridiculousness of those scenarios, a period of awkward silence passed. I finally managed to speak.
“I really have no idea how this could be possible.” I flung the door open.
The officer took out his flashlight, and I stepped aside: “If you don’t believe me, you are welcome to look around.” To be honest, I said this out of pure fear to make sure he didn’t find a reason to consider me uncooperative.
He slowly stepped in, scanning my large and empty living room with his light as I scurried off to the bedroom to get my glasses (being unable to see up until this point was really quite terrifying). He opened my coat closet, scanned the kitchen, under the dining room table, coffee table, on the other side of the couch. I followed a few feet behind him as he walked toward the bedroom.
“Nobody’s going to jump out from under the bed, are they?”
Again, I controlled my urge to laugh. “Um, no. But feel free to check it yourself.”
He proceeded to do so. He scanned the entire room, both closets, and walked out.
“I have to check the bathroom and shower, too,” he said.
“By all means, go for it.”
Somewhere in between the bedroom and bathroom walk-through, I was trying to explain to him that I’ve never had more than two people in the apartment at one time, and the only thing I doing this weekend was hanging out with my parents. I sounded frantic, and he pretended not to hear me, which was probably best for both of us.
As I moved near my open front door, another officer stepped inside.
“Yeah, she says it’s not coming from here,” the first officer said to him.
Officer #2 directed his response at me: “Well, we got two calls about this place. Number ****.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“Sorry to bother you so early on a Saturday,” said officer #1, “but I’m telling you, the calls were about this apartment right here. Do you think it could have been your neighbors? I doubt they got mixed up, but it’s possible, I guess. Apartment walls can be paper-thin.”
“No, we’ve never had any noise issues in this building, that I know of. I mean, I sleep like a rock, but I would think I’d hear someth–”
“Were you sleeping on this couch?” He motioned toward the living room.
Wtf? “…Sir, I have a bed. I sleep in my bed. Like most people do.”
I saw a frustrated glance between the two officers, and they stepped outside. I apologized for not being who/what they were looking for (which is pretty silly, in retrospect) and shut the door behind them.
There were at least two things I wish I would have said to the officers during this ordeal. Thing #1: A city police officer actually lives in the apartment immediately next door to mine; had there been a disturbance, it already would have been taken care of. Thing #2: I was wearing Guitar Hero shorts…did I really look like a person who would throw a raging party that would last past sunrise?
Upon the feds’ departure, I sat on my couch and tried to process what had just taken place. My head slumped down, and I closed my eyes. I could hear the men making their way down the apartment steps and stopping at their car.
“Oh, wow. Y’know what? I think we were one number off. That apartment number is in a completely different building. Take a left over there.”
AWESOME. Thanks, fellas.
