Saturday, July 24, 2004

This is how I learned the importance of calling ahead.

I like scaring people. Especially female people.

Screams are more entertaining in soprano.

I like to hide behind the refrigerator when my mom gets home. When she walks through the kitchen door, I yell “Boo!” and run for my life. I sneak up on girls I know in the cafeteria and wait behind them silently just to hear them gasp when they turn around and see me standing where they thought no one would be standing at all.

I love the feeling of the stalk. Hearing that startled shriek is worth a five-minute wait.

I think I do it because it makes me seem kind of like Batman. Most girls think it makes me seem more like a serial killer.

That was the case four days ago. And I wasn’t even trying.

It had been a week and a half since my parents left me alone to guard the house while they vacationed out west. Having thirteen rooms all to your naked self can get a bit lonely, so I decided to put on some pants and surprise Vimie and Gigi up in Michigan with an unexpected visit.

The plan was to leave late in the afternoon and get there shortly after sunset. But laziness mixed with television has a way of making me get to things much later than expected. By the time I pulled out of the driveway, it was midnight.

Add on to that the two hours of driving and the hour you lose in the transition from Central Time to Eastern Time, and it was 3am when I finally got there. All the lights in the house were out except for a faint glimmer down the hall that I could see through the front window. I would have rung the doorbell, but I knew that Gigi has a tendency to go to bed early, and I didn’t want to wake her up. Vimie, on the other hand, is much more like me and doesn’t sleep til almost daybreak, so I decided to walk around the house and knock on her bedroom window.

When I got around back, I could see that the light in her room was still on. I couldn’t actually see inside, though, because the shades were drawn, but I was sure she was still awake reading or something. I worked my way through the bushes outside her room and gently knocked on the glass.

There was no reply. So I started knocking harder.

This time she responded by turning off the light.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier that tapping on someone’s bedroom window at three in the morning might freak them out. Such actions make you seem more like a rapist than a friend from out of state.

So I walked to the front to try a more conventional method of letting someone know you’re visiting known as “ringing the doorbell”. Two rings later and still no answer.

I figured I had freaked the girls out enough. I gave up and decided to spend the rest of the night sleeping in my car until the girls got up the next morning to find me in their driveway.

I got into my car and was about to settle in for the night when I saw the red and blue lights flashing through the rear window.

Vimie had called the cops on me. Apparently she did think I was a rapist.

After getting getting blinded by flashlight, the cop made me step out of the car and hand over my identification. Luckily, the girls came out and straightened things up before the guy could cuff and frisk me.

So that was my second ever encounter with the police. Luckily, it ended much like my first – without an arrest. Hopefully this time was my last. But you never know. As they say,"The third time’s a charm.”

Maybe next time I’ll actually get booked.